


The last dandelion of summer

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Series: The English job [38]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Killing, Fawnlock, Fluff, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied Mystrade, Interspecies Sex, John is human, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Magic Realism, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sherlock is a faun, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-06-16 07:03:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 69,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15431595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: John is a veteran, his kingdom has lost the war and his native village has been handed over to the neighboring Kingdom. After a long wandering, he arrives in a village at the foot of a forest, that everyone says is cursed and populated by monstrous creatures. John thinks  that it is just a stupid superstition, and decides to settle right in the forest, unaware that the said creatures are real. Among them, there is Sherlock, who is immediately very interested in the human.Now with thewonderful covermade byAllsovacant. Isn't it perfect?Chapter 18: A happy and hopeful epilogue for our boys.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [L'ultimo tarassaco dell'estate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9539480) by [Hotaru_Tomoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe). 



> Hello everyone ^_^  
> Before leaving you to the story, I have a couple of indications to give you: the setting of this long fic is particular, similar to a "historical fantasy", but not exactly, because there aren’t any real historical events, the Kingdoms and all the places mentioned here were invented by me.  
> However, if I wanted to compare the setting of the fic to a real historical period, I would say that it could be placed during the second half of 17th century in central / northern Europe.  
> I tried to be careful and precise in the descriptions, but I’m not a scholar or a History expert, so it’s very likely that there are anachronisms.  
> In particular I don’t know the terms of ancient English (translation had been particularly hard). I have done some research, but I fear the language used here is more modern than it should be (and full of mistakes, as usual :p ~ of course feel free to point them out to me).  
> Sherlock and other characters are not human in this story, they are similar to fauns, in fact I was inspired by the headcanon of "Fawnlock".
> 
> Kudos and comments are always welcome ♥

 

The improvised camp hospital beneath the trees was full of wounded men, and other men scrambling around them, often in vain.

Here and there small fires were lit, and invocations of help, curses, and moans were heard everywhere.

It was a bleak show, but after ten years on the battlefront, John was so used to pain, despair and death, that his heart was almost anesthetized; seeing day after day men killed or mutilated by sabers, arrows or muskets, had dried up his sense of pity, to the point that he wasn’t horrified anymore before human suffering.

After all, the scene before his eyes wasn’t new, and who knows how many other times it would be repeated in the future.

"Will he heal, Hazel?" John asked the old woman, who was pounding a pungent smelling root into a small mortar, until a thick, greenish oil came out.

A soldier was lying on the ground, unconscious and feverish.

"Maybe yes, but the infection is extensive. Now keep him still: if he wakes up now, he will start to get agitated and end up hurting himself."

John grabbed the soldier by the shoulders and pressed them down, while Hazel rubbed the ointment on the wound on his right arm.

"We are lucky that he fainted: if he were awake, he would scream that the ointment burns like hell, and perhaps he would accuse me of being a witch who wants to kill him to steal his soul," the woman muttered.

Many soldiers didn’t like the old Hazel, and they had a superstitious fear of her, because her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants had given her a sinister reputation. Obviously the woman had never studied at the University (she didn’t even know how to read and write), her remedies were far from the official medicine, and the real doctors despised her, but since their troop was too small to have a doctor, Hazel was all they had when it came to patching wounds or treating high fever, so the other soldiers tolerated her, at least.

Instead, John liked her a lot; moreover, being close to her, over the years he had learned a lot about the healing properties of roots, herbs and mushrooms.

John treated her with respect and humanity, also because he knew her story: she was a harmless widow who had lost her husband first, and her only child then, during that war; she believed that, if she died on a battlefield too, she would have seen her family again, before the end of the Times.

And then, perhaps, she saw the faces of her lost loved ones in some of those soldiers.

After all the horrors he had witnessed in those years, John had also stopped believing in God and the afterlife, but if that thought brought a little comfort to Hazel, he wouldn’t have contradicted her.

"I have finished," the old woman announced. "If tomorrow morning he will wake up, he will survive. If not, God's will be done. Instead, Parcey must be buried as soon as possible."

Hazel pointed to a body covered with a jute cloth, moved to the edge of the camp.

"Why?" John asked, straightening up.

"Because he didn’t die because of the last battle, he was sick and I couldn’t figure out what he had, so I’m afraid he could have something contagious."

"I understand."

It wasn’t the first time that some soldier died of illness, and probably there was no reason to be too much alarmed, but it was better not to risk: they couldn’t afford to suffer also a contagious disease, after the last battle.

"He had already received the last rites, there is no reason to linger further, for the sake of those who are still alive."

"I will ask for him to be buried in the cemetery of the nearby village, and I will use quicklime." [1]

"Here, take this as a precaution."

Hazel soaked a rag in water and alcohol and handed it to John, who put it on his nose and mouth, as she had taught him.

"And when you're done with the burial, wash yourself with soap."

John asked for a cart, he wrapped the corpse tightly in the jute cloth with ropes, put him on the cart and carried him to the cemetery.

A ten or twelve years boy, dressed in rags, sat on a stone near the entrance to the cemetery and, when he saw John coming, approached him.

"Stay away!” John warned him, “this man died of illness and could be contagious."

"Yes, obviously, everyone says so, because they hope to scare us," replied the brat, not at all intimidated, while he was trying to peek inside the cart.

"Why are you so interested in seeing a corpse? It’s a bit not good," John rebuked him.

"He could still have something of value on him, and if I don’t take it, someone else will."

"You have no shame! Despoiling a body is a serious crime, and if the guards find you, you will be punished."

The child shrugged, indifferent to the reproach.

"My little sisters have to eat, and dead people don’t need anymore gold teeth or coins... oh, but he's just a soldier,” the boy said, after he could peek under the cloth and saw the uniform. “Nothing then, the others soldiers have already despoiled him. But I can dig the grave for five silver coins."

"Don’t you have a gravedigger in this village?"

"He is dead."

"Okay," John surrendered, and threw the coins to the boy, who immediately began to dig with an old rusty shovel: he was quick and skilled, as if it weren’t the first time he did something like that, and it probably wasn’t.

God, they lived in a such lousy world! That child should have been home at that time of night, and go to Sunday school, at least to learn how to read and write, instead of digging graves at the cemetery for a few coins.

Unfortunately, scenes like those were very frequent since the war began; John had seen similar ones in many other villages and, not for the first time, he felt small and useless. He and his men fought to get peace and to give people the opportunity to start living a normal life again, he himself had left Mary, his betrothed, in his home village, but so much time had passed since the beginning of the war, that the end of hostilities with the neighboring Kingdom seemed more and more a distant mirage.

He had exchanged only sporadic letters with Mary during those years, a few lines to tell each other that they were still alive, and John almost didn’t remember how it felt to live a normal life.

Sometimes he had the impression of being at war forever.

At least, winter was coming and, as every year, there would be a temporary armistice: during the bad season it snowed too much, and it was so cold that the soldiers of both armies risked to freeze to death during night, and there wouldn’t have been enough to fight during the day; the winter would have allowed them to rest for at least three months, waiting to return to the battlefield in the springtime.

"Sir, are you a soldier too?" The boy asked, as he spread the quicklime on the bottom of the grave.

"Yes."

"How's the war going? Who is winning?"

"I really don’t know, son."

Their troop was engaged in some minor battles, the main ones were fought further south, along the border between their Kingdom, Northumberland, and the neighboring Kingdom of Reichenbach, and it was difficult for them to get any news on the progress of the conflict.

Every now and then the King's heralds or some Earl with new battle plans arrived from the capital city, and they just followed the orders: that was the task of the soldiers.

"And why did the war break out?" The boy wanted to know, his dirty face emerging from the hole.

"A matter of violated borders, I believe."

In front of that child's stolen innocence, it seemed such a futile reason, and John felt tired, tired of everything, tired of seeing dead and wounded soldiers, tired of that endless war, tired of not being able to realize his life plans because of two whimsical kings who had been fighting for ten years.

"I'm done, the grave is ready."

John tossed him another coin.

"Bravo, you did a good job. Now go home."

"Yes, sir."

John settled the wet handkerchief over his face, rolled the corpse into the hole, covered it with lime and earth, wash himself with soap, and walked away.

There was a marble slab at the entrance to the small cemetery, that he hadn’t previously noticed.

It said: _"Today to me, tomorrow to you"_.

"I hope not so soon," John muttered, returning to the camp.

During his walk, he collected some dandelion leaves: despite it was late autumn, that small and very common flower still resisted, and since it was edible, it was a small addition to their meager food ration.

Better than nothing.

 

Unfortunately for John, the ominous omen written on the slab of the cemetery came about a few days later.

It seemed that the Reichenbach Kingdom had a new, clever warlord, because, instead of insisting on the apparently insurmountable main front, he diverted most of the army on a secondary zone of the border, the one defended by John's men, who were caught by surprise and immediately found themselves at a tactical and numerical disadvantage.

It was a carnage.

John killed, dismembered, defended himself with all his strength, and he was one of the few not to be killed, but he was wounded by a musket to the shoulder, and remained a few days between life and death.

He regained consciousness early one morning, while Hazel tried to make him drink hot water and honey.

"What?" He whispered.

"No," the old woman admonished, looking around to make sure no one had heard him. "Do not talk now, pretend you're still unconscious, otherwise, if they see you've recovered, they'll send you away."

"Who...?" John insisted, but Hazel shook her head.

"Not now, we will talk when you feel better: if you get up now, all my efforts to heal you will have been in vain. Listen to me, John, we are in trouble."

And so, John pretended to be unconscious again for a few days, hoping to recover his strength: from the voices he heard around him, he understood that the army of Reichenbach had defeated them and had taken possession of that territory.

He hoped that from the capital of Northumberland the King would immediately send reinforcements to reconquer the lost ground, but as the days passed he realized that it wouldn’t happen.

He also realized that the position of his Kingdom in that war was worse than what the King's heralds had always made them believe. If the soldiers had known that they were losing, they would have been demotivated, many would have deserted, and so the aristocracy had lied, hoping to keep as many soldiers as possible on the battlefront. It was clear that they considered them only meat for slaughter.

"We lost, didn’t we?" He asked Hazel one night, and the old woman nodded weakly.

"What now?" John whispered disconsolately. He was the soldier, he was the one who was supposed to console that ruffled gray-haired woman, but at that moment, before the enormity of defeat, John was nothing, they all were absolutely nothing.

"They say that tomorrow a Duke, a general of the Reichenbach army, will come here to tell us our fate. Perhaps the time has come when I will reunite with my loved ones."

"No Hazel, if they wanted to kill us, they would have already done it."

"Oh, then I have still to wait?" The woman's voice carried a resigned note, but John didn’t know what to say to cheer her up: Hazel had already lost everything, and now she didn’t even have any wounded soldiers to heal.

For him, at least, despite the defeat and the uncertainty of the future, there was always the certainty of returning to his native village, where his betrothed awaited for him.

Slowly, John moved a hand from beneath the frayed and dirty blanket, and squeezed Hazel's rough and wrinkled one, then he turned his gaze to the nearby, dying fire: a gust of wind raised some glowing embers in the air; they danced a few moments near a low wall, lighting a dandelion flower, ready to spread its seeds in the air. It seemed impossible that such a small and delicate flower had survived the ferocious battle that had bloodied that land, yet it was there, and John hoped that he and Hazel were as lucky and tenacious as the flower, and that they would survive once again.

The next day, when a soldier of the enemy army who was making a list on the injured men of the camp, approached him and Hazel, John pretended to have just awakened; he had been wounded in the shoulder, but when he tried to stand up, his right leg didn’t hold him, and he fell to the ground.

"Stop this sloppy act and stand up, soldier!" The man shouted.

"He's still very weak, have mercy!" Hazel intervened, putting an arm around his waist, but the other soldier laughed derisively: "I don’t care, old woman! Find him a crutch, or drag him away: this camp will be cleared today at sunset by order of Duke Sebastian Moran."

"Who is he?"

"He is the warlord who led our army to victory, and the new Lord and master of these lands."

Around noon, Moran came to the village, followed by a group of soldiers, riding a majestic black steed, richly dressed up, like a symbol of his triumph.

The man himself, with his imposing size and his commanding attitude, gave the impression of dominating the small frightened crowd gathered in the main square, with the only force of his look and the authority of his voice.

"By the will of God and of our Lord, James Moriarty, king of Reichenbach, I am your new Duke. The Earl of these lands has been chased away, like all the other Northumberland dignitaries. From this moment on, the soldiers still able to fight become part of the Reichenbach army, to those who have been permanently injured but are still able to work, will be assigned a new task. All the others, amputees, cripples or people unable to work,” his gaze wandered over the crowd and paused for a moment on John, with his injured arm wrapped in a bandage, leaning on a makeshift crutch, “they have until tomorrow evening to leave these lands or they will be executed: I don’t want dead weights on my possessions. An edict with the new laws will be displayed on the door of the church in the coming days: respect them and you will live in peace, and nothing will change for you; break them and you'll need a bigger graveyard." [2]

With a light stroke of the spur, and pulling gently the reins to the right, Duke Moran turned his steed, and left the small crowd dumbfounded.

"What are you going to do, John?" Hazel asked as she helped him retrieving some rags to put together a rudimentary bag.

"I will return to my home village, hoping it hasn’t been involved in the battles."

"But it's far from here! You will have to cross the Ecur pass, and, in this season, it will have already started to snow up there. Can’t you wait until the next spring?"

"No, you heard what the Duke Moran said: no invalids on his lands."

Hazel checked his shoulder again: it was healing well and showed no signs of infection.

"I don’t understand why you're limping," she sighed then, as she helped him get dressed, "you haven’t been hit in the leg... it almost seems like a curse and not an illness. Maybe the man who hurt you had magical powers."

"It doesn’t matter now," John replied and put two changes of clothes inside the bag: all his belongings, since the soldiers of Reichenbach had stolen their salaries and seized all their weapons. "But what will you do, Hazel?"

"I will stay here: people may despise or fear me, but they always need me when they get sick or hurt, and there is no doctor in this village. Don’t worry, I'll be fine."

"I owe you my life, Hazel, and I don’t know how to thank you."

"Nonsense: along these years, your sincere friendship has warmed my heart."

John tied the bag to the branch of a tree, retrieved the crutch and set out to leave.

"Thanks again for everything you've done for us."

"Wait,” the old woman looked around and, when she was sure nobody looked at them, she handed John a wooden box. “Before the soldiers of Reichenbach ransacked the camp, I managed to hide these things. Luckily for us, the man who inspected the box was very superstitious, and didn’t want to touch it."

The box contained little bones of animals, shells and stones tied together in what looked like eerie magical amulets, but its real secret was a double bottom, where a sharp dagger and some silver coins were hidden: John’s last salary.

"Hazel..."

"It's a long journey to your home, you'll need both, and you'll need luck, too," she said, putting one of the amulets around his neck.

"Thanks, old friend, I will never forget you."

 

Even the man that gave a ride to John on his cart just outside the village, said it was madness to try to cross the Ecur pass in winter, and he certainly wouldn’t have brought him there.

John was forced to proceed in stages, stopping in the villages along the road that led to the mountains, already snow-capped, and waiting for a new passage to the next village. He had no other thought in mind than to get home and leave everything behind: the horrors of the war, the hardships, his comrades killed during the last battle and thrown by Duke Moran into a mass grave without any human pity.

Fortunately, the little news that came up there was encouraging: his village and the others in the western region had been spared by the violence of the battles, so once he got home, he would find a job to do, and would live in peace. Maybe he could become an apothecary [3] like Hazel: over the years, being close to her, he had learned a lot about the properties of medicinal roots and herbs.

And who knows, perhaps, with time, his mysterious limp would be healed.

Unfortunately, the high Ecur pass prevented him to quickly discover what future awaited him: obstructed by a massive avalanche of snow and stones, couldn’t be crossed, and forced John to wait almost two months in a handful of houses at the foot of the mountains, where he did some simple chores in exchange for a roof over his head and some food.

At the end of February the winter's grip loosened, and John was able to resume his journey toward home; Hazel's dagger came in handy against the brigands who infested those mountains: one night, two of them wanted to surprise John in his sleep, slaughter him and steal his few possessions, but John, thanks to the experience accumulated in years of war, had already noticed their presence and was heedful: when he was attacked, there was a a pacey and violent but rapid scuffle, and, in the end, the two brigands lay dead on the ground. From their bodies, John took a heavy dark cloak, coins and an almost new musket, which surely the two had stolen from someone else, then left.

Once, John wouldn’t abandon the bodies of two human beings in the open, for them to become the meal of the wild beasts, but now he turned his back on them and went on, ignoring an annoying voice inside him that asked what he had become.

He was sure that, once he returned home and resumed his old life, he would forget everything he had gone through, all that he had been forced to do or had done of his own will, even that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Quicklime, known even by Romans, was used to cover the graves where infected corpses or animal carcasses were thrown, to prevent the spread of diseases.
> 
> [2] Despite being two monarchies, the Kingdoms of Northumberland and the one of Reichenbach have two different administrative systems: in the first one, the king is flanked by Earls, in the second one by the Dukes. Obviously, the passage of land from one kingdom to another involves a change in the system of government.
> 
> [3] Apothecary: I did some research and I found out that this is the ancient name of the pharmacist. In the past, although they weren’t doctors, they made medicines and remedies based on herbs and roots.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John comes home to his native village and his betrothed, but it seems that many things have changed, after the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to reassure you that this is the only apparition of Mary in history. She comes and goes, leaving no trace behind.

After having climbed over the impervious pass through the mountains, the road leveled off and the path became easier, even for John’s limping gait.

Once arrived on the lowland, John asked for a ride to one of the many boats that sailed the waters of the Cheo river, one of the most important river of Northumberland, transporting goods and supplies.

John remembered that once those boats were overflowing with rich goods, while now the loads were greatly reduced because of the aftermath of the war.

He realized then he had to deal with that aftermath for a long time, even there: it seemed that from the sky, God was busy with all his might to make impossible for John to forget the horrors of the war, and to make him carry that burden on his shoulders.

Choosing the waterway, John would arrive at a harbour north of his village, and then he would have to cut through the countryside, but he would have saved time, compared to the land route. 

He had spent all the silver coins he had with him, but he wasn’t worried: John had always been a farsighted man, and had some savings in a hidden place.

As the destination approached, John became increasingly impatient: the familiar land of his native region appeared on the horizon, and soon the river would have flowed through orchards and meadows, where the peasants were about to sow the fields.

Only that, to his surprise, he noticed that no one was in the fields, and many of them were fallow and overgrown with weeds. It was true that many men were sent to the war, like him, but in the meantime, women and teens had tended the crops and worked in the fields for all those years.

He didn’t understand why, now that the war was finally over, and people could start to live and work in peace again, the countryside was so desolate.

"Do you know what happened here?" John asked the boatman, pointing to the deserted fields, but he shook his head.

"I don’t know and I don’t care. I live on the river, drive my barge and mind my own business."

After being arrived at the harbour near to his village, John retrieved his bag and crutch and hurried home, as fast as his limping gait would allow him.

After hours of walking, he came to the north gate of the village, where he saw two familiar faces, after all those years: Bill Murray, his dear childhood friend, who was guarding the entrance and talking animatedly with Mr. Bromelian, the old chief magistrate.

"My friends!" He shouted from afar, raising one arm in greeting.

"John? John Watson, is it really you?” Bill ran to meet him and stared at him with wild eyes, as if he had seen a ghost. 

“We all thought you had died during the last battle! Nobody has heard any news from you."

"It has been terrible, I was injured but I survived, and now I'm home. Tell me Bill, what's going on here? Why aren’t the peasants working in the fields? Now it's time to sow."

"Our new Lord has decided to cultivate new plants, so we are waiting for rice and corn seeds."

"What new Lord?" John asked, confused: was there a rearrangement of the Countships of Northumberland?

"Don’t you know anything, Mr. Watson? Where have you lived so far?" Asked Mr. Bromelian, abrupt and hostile.

"This winter I stopped at the foot of the Ecur mountain range, then I crossed the pass a few weeks ago, and I barely met a living soul on the way, so I know nothing about anything."

"Well, the last battle meant the defeat of our Kingdom in the war; after that, long peace negotiations began,” Bill explained, “and according to the peace treaty signed by the two Kings, the whole region south of the Cheo river, has become a possession of the Kingdom of Reichenbach. Duke David Lindey is the new Lord of these lands: he has been living in the Citadel outside the village for some time, and an official celebration ceremony will take place in days."

"Will the Reichenbach Kingdom extend up to here? I can’t believe it..." John murmured in despair, leaning on his crutch. He felt like the victim of the cruel joke of a capricious deity: he had walked for months, enduring hunger, cold and fatigue, thinking he was finally at home, only to find that some accursed bureaucrats had redrawn the borders of the two Kingdoms, comfortably seated on their padded benches.

"And what happened to our Earl, Sir Sholto?"

"He's been back in the Capital for some time, this is no longer a Countship, but a Duchy."

"If the defensive line held up, now we wouldn’t find ourselves in this terrible situation," proclaimed Mr. Bromelian, implicitly accusing John and his men of not doing their duty.

_ "How dares he?” _ John thought angrily.  _ “He wasn’t there, he stayed here, protected and safe! He hasn’t fight that ferocious battle, he knows nothing of our pain and our sacrifice, and yet he dares to judge us." _

But the chief magistrate didn’t give John the time to reply, as he walked away, muttering hostilely, while Bill lifted a hand to placate John's anger, so clear in his gaze.

"Try to understand him: with the passage under the new Kingdom, he has lost his office and tomorrow he will have to leave the village, because all the Northumberland dignitaries have been replaced, and Lord Moriarty wants only people he trusts in the key places."

"I should understand him? Bill, you have no idea what these ten years have been for me. Ten years of war, sacrifice and suffering, do you realize it? And then I come back home and I have to face foolish accusations, when…” He spread his arms, disconsolate, then took a breath to calm down. “All right, it doesn’t matter, I just want to go to my house."

"Well..." Bill started hesitantly, looking at his lame leg.

"Oh, let me guess: my limp is a problem."

"According to the laws of Reichenbach, to which now we are subjected, all men of working age must have a job, or be able to do it, otherwise..."

"They have to leave the Kingdom," John concluded. "It's something that I've already had the displeasure of listening."

Dammit! He hadn’t imagined his return home to be like that. After all, he just wanted to find peace and start living a quiet life again, he wasn’t asking that much!

He passed his hand over his eyes and sighed: "All right! You know what? It doesn’t matter, either, I don’t want to live under Lord Moriarty and his cruel laws anyway, so I'll go home to Mary, take our belongings, cross the border, and then... we'll see... we'll rebuild our future elsewhere."

A shadow of hesitation passed over Bill's face and his friend seemed about to say something, but in the end, he just raised a hand: "You can’t enter the village carrying weapons, leave here the musket and the dagger, I will keep them and give back to you when you come back. "

"Thanks Bill, we'll be quick."

 

John walked through the main street of the village: he noticed known people, gathered in small groups to discuss the new political situation, and also new faces and unknown accents, a sign that the citizens of Reichenbach had already begun to take possession of the land; nobody noticed him, and John reached his old home, where his betrothed awaited, without being stopped by anyone.

He cleaned his dirty clothes as best as he could, passed a hand through his hair to make himself more presentable and smiled, excited at the idea to see Mary’s face after all these years: she would have been surprised and moved!

He knocked, but it wasn’t his betrothed to open the door, it was a younger woman, very beautiful, with a curvy body, and long black hair combed in an elaborate hairstyle, which wasn’t typical of the women of that land; the lady looked at him compassionately, but her voice was detached when she spoke. 

"I'm sorry, good man, we don’t do charity, try the church."

"Wha-what? This is my house! Where's Mary?"

"Oh!” the woman's eyes widened in amazement. “You must be John Watson, the soldier."

"In person. And who are you?"

"Madame Janine Hawkins, the new owner of this house."

"Who gave you the right to take my house?" John asked, putting his hands on his hips.

"I didn’t confiscate it, if it’s what you mean, even if I could, according to the laws of Lord Moriarty. I have regularly bought it, and I have a copy of the deed, written by a notary, which proves it."

"Bought from whom?"

"From Madame Mary Morstan, of course: she believed that you were dead in the final battle, and since she doesn’t live here anymore and didn’t need this house, she sold it to me."

John was stunned to learn that Mary had sold so quickly the house where he was born and raised; it was true that, having no other close relatives (his sister Harriet had long since moved to the New World, and he hadn’t heard from her for years) John had designated Mary as his sole heir in his will, but it really seemed that the woman hadn’t lost time.

She probably needed money urgently... and seeing the outcome of the war, it was hardly surprising. He couldn’t really get angry with her for that, it had only been a logical and rational decision.

"Do you know where Madame Morstan has moved?"

"To the Citadel."

The Citadel was the fortified castle, perched on a hill overlooking the valley, where the Earls had always lived, and where the Duke now lived, apparently.

But why did Mary live there now? Perhaps she had to find a job as maid for new nobility from Reichenbach. Poor woman! But soon John would free her from that nightmare: he still had a secret resource, and with that he would take her away from there, and together they would start a new life.

"Thank you, Madame Hawkins, and forgive my rude manners," John said with a respectful little bow.

"You reaction is more than understandable,” she excused him. “Will you go to see Mary, now?"

"Of course. Why do you ask me that?" John was puzzled in front of Madame Hawkins's serious, almost worried face: of course John would run to see his betrothed and tell her he was alive.

Madame Hawkins just shook her head.

"Madame Morstan will be the one to explain it to you. I only ask you to... try to understand the circumstances."

More and more confused, John left and walked towards the Citadel: he was about to reach the drawbridge of the little castle, when, in the surrounding meadow, he noticed a blonde woman sitting on the grass, weaving garlands of flowers, with other three damsels.

It was his betrothed.

"Mary... MARY!" He cried, his heart pounding, and limped toward her.

Hearing the sound of his voice, Mary dropped the garland to the ground and blanched, covering her mouth with one hand; overcoming the initial shock, she said something to the three women in an agitated voice and sent them away, then she got up to meet him, lifting the wide blue skirt to walk faster.

That rich damask silk dress couldn’t belong to a maid, but at that moment John was too happy to notice it.

"John..." Mary whispered, coming closer to him.

"Yes, it's me: the voices were false, I didn’t die at war."

"I... I haven’t heard from you for months, I knew your whole division had been exterminated and..."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry to have made you suffer so much, but unfortunately there was no way to get you a message, the situation over there was too chaotic. If only you had seen the destruction, Mary..."

"I sold the house," the woman said hurriedly, looking increasingly agitated and nervous, and there wasn’t a smile on her face, yet, but John thought it was only shock.

"It's okay, you thought you were left alone in the world and you needed the money, I'm not angry, I promise,” he hastened to reassure her. “Now come here and hug me."

The woman, however, didn’t move and raised her hands, as if to placate a wild, irascible and shady animal.

"Try to understand me, John, I thought you were dead," she insisted.

The man frowned, confused by Mary's fearful reaction.

"Yes, I understood, but as you can see, it's not like that: I'm alive and I'm here. Everything is alright, my dear: gather your belongings, tell your master that your fiancé has returned, and we will leave the village before sunset."

"Leaving?” Hearing those words, Mary took a step back and paled further. “To go where?

"With the new Reichenbach laws I can’t stay, you know. We will go north of the Cheo river, returning to the Kingdom of Northumberland."

"And then?"

"And then we'll settle somewhere," John replied, a shadow of exasperation that began to leak out of his voice: did it really matter now? They had found each other, everything was fine, they would have thought about the details in another moment. 

Mary, however, thought differently, and pressed him further, her lips bent into a grimace of disappointment: "And then what? Tell me what the future awaits us in a kingdom that has lost the war, tell me what you can do now that you..." she murmured, looking away from John’s crutch.

"We will do, somehow, and then I have..."

"Somehow?” she replied in disbelief, interrupting him. “You are daydreaming, John: you can’t do any heavy work, that it’s clear, and you aren’t able to do anything else. Should I do it, maybe? Should I spend the rest of my life in misery, shoveling manure in the stables?"

"You know I would never allow it."

"And what will you do, then?"

"I still don’t know, but..."

"No John: I have already lived ten years of hardship and it was enough to me. And then, now things have changed."

"What does this mean?" John asked angrily. Mary looked at the Citadel, anxious, as if suddenly the idea of talking to him was unbearable to her, and his appearance had disrupted some personal plan of her.

John took a step back and looked more objectively at his betrothed, who now seemed like a stranger to him: the gorgeous dress, the clean hair, perfumed and elegantly styled like the Reichenbach women did, the smooth and well-groomed hands, the three damsels waiting for her near the drawbridge...

"You don’t work at the Citadel, you live there."

"Duke David Lindey was unmarried and was searching for a wife: the union with a local woman would have helped to pacify the relations between our two peoples," she said calmly, as if this justified everything.

"I'm your fiancé," John hissed angrily.

"I thought you were dead, I did nothing wrong,” said Mary, standing her ground. “And, as I told you, now things have changed." The woman cupped her hands on her  stomach in a protective gesture, and looked down an instant, but when she looked back at John, there was no love in her eyes.

Oh.

In shock, John dropped his crutch: he had fought, he had sacrificed the best years of his life, he had struggled to stay alive despite hunger, misery, wounds, he had faced the winter and crossed half the Kingdom to return home and live the life he fancied, that had made him resist in the darkest and most desperate hours, only to discover that there was nothing left waiting for him.

Nothing, not a house, not a bride; all his sacrifices were in vain, and that dream that had made him move forward, had vanished like the night mist at sunrise.

For a moment, he was tempted to take revenge, and to vent on Mary the venom and the anger he was feeling.

"We've exchanged promises and I'm alive, so your current marriage is not valid."

A flash of fear crossed Mary's eyes, then an expression of pure fury appeared on her face, an expression that John had never seen, and that made him stagger on his lame leg: if Mary had a dagger hidden under his skirt, she wouldn’t hesitate to cut his throat, like he was a pig.

Who was that woman? Had he ever known her for real? 

That angry face told him that if John insisted on that road, then she would turn his life into a hell of rancor, contempt and revenge.

Oh no, thank you so much, John had already seen enough hell for a lifetime.

"I know you're angry with me and you want revenge, I can understand that," Mary went on, calmer, "but he or she is innocent."

The woman caressed her round belly and John’s rancor vanished instantly, leaving nothing behind it: nothing mattered, not even the fact that Mary was using the baby to soften and manipulate him.

"You can’t condemn an innocent baby to a life in poverty, when they can have this," the woman concluded.

_ This _ , a Citadel, a wealthy life and lands to reign on once adult, while John had nothing but himself and a bundle of rags.

Small and useless like an ant in front of a giant.

"Did someone see you coming here?" Mary wanted to know.

"Bill, Mr. Bromelion and Madame Hawkins, but I'll tell Bill to pretend he didn’t see me, Mr. Bromelion will leave these lands tomorrow morning, and I don’t think you should worry about Madame Hawkins, since you've already done business together."

John turned away without even saying goodbye to her, and after a moment he heard the rustle of Mary's skirt. She came back to her ladies-in-waiting, probably with a fabricated story to tell them, to justify his presence without causing scandals.

He didn’t even have the strength to ask himself what he would do from now on, and he walked mechanically, putting one foot in front of the other with the aid of the crutch.

However, he couldn’t stay there, the guards of Reichenbach wouldn’t tolerate the presence of a crippled and useless vagabond: he would return to Northumberland, alone, and then…

In front of him John saw only a dense, gray fog and unanswered questions. His sister lived on the other side of the world, and certainly he couldn’t appear suddenly at her doorstep, not to mention that they had never had such a good relationship, they couldn’t live together, it would never work.

His legs took him to a wood not far from his old house, where he and his friends spent their afternoons playing during their childhood. There was a very old chestnut tree with a hollow trunk and many dead branches, but, despite the years, the plant stubbornly refused to die, and kept producing new generations of twigs all around the base. 

Inside his hollow trunk there was a flat stone, and under it a hole, where John had hidden a leather bag with twenty-seven gold coins, partly savings, partly the legacy of his parents; in his dreams, he should spend them to give Mary a beautiful wedding dress and new household utensils, but Mary had already taken care of herself in the best way.

He hid the coins in the inner lining of his jacket and returned to the north gate of the village,  where Bill was waiting for him.

"So, did you see Mary?"

"Yes: she has build a new life for herself, but you already knew it, didn’t you?" There was no trace of accusation in John’s voice, only weariness.

"Well, I... I thought it was better for you to find out by yourself. And then I hope that she, seeing you again, maybe..."

John burst into a cold and empty giggle: "Ah! Maybe what? Did you think she would give up the comforts of a duchess's life to be a refugee with me?"

"I'm really sorry, John... You didn’t deserve this."

"Forget everything, Bill. I will leave and you will not see me again, it will be as if I had never come back."

John picked up the dagger, and stared at the barrel of the musket: the idea of ending his life crossed his mind, but it would have been an undeserved trauma for his old friend, the only one who still seemed to care about him.

Bill extended his hand: "Good luck, John."

"Likewise, Bill."

And so, after having lost all hope in the future, John walked on the same dirty road from which he had come, with only the first dandelion flowers of spring to keep him company along the way.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tired of traveling, John arrives at Fort Barts and, attracted by the beauty of nature, decides to settle in the Forest, ignoring the warnings of Mr. Anderson and Madame Donovan.

John crossed the bridge over the Cheo river, that now marked the border between the two kingdoms, and limped toward the next village.

He wasn’t alone: along the way he was joined by other men, women, orphans or whole families, people left without a house or job, people who had been evicted by the new owners, people who were still loyal to the Kingdom of Northumberland, and many, many war veterans like him, wounded, tired, sick and alone, with no future.

As they passed through the villages, they were greeted by hostile looks and annoyed insults, whispered not even too softly:

_ "Look at them! We lost the war because of them, and now we should support them?" _

_ "They are too many! There is no bread for us, certainly there is not for them." _

_ "They are injured, crippled, mutilated, what jobs can they do?" _

_ "They will end up begging at street corners or stealing food from us." _

Refugees in their own homeland, after giving years of their lives to protect its borders.

Some of John's traveling companions, when they heard those scornful words, got angry, answered back, cursed, and often fights broke out.

John was just incredibly disgusted and tired, so much that he didn’t even have the strength to get angry; his dreams had been destroyed, he had no plan in mind for the future, nor a precise aim: he would walk until his legs held up and then... it didn’t matter, all the places were the same, to live.

Or to die.

 

His aimless wandering ended at the end of March that.

The wagon on which he was traveling arrived in the village of Saint Bartholomew, or Fort Barts, as the locals called it, a fairly large outpost that lay at the foot of another mountain range, so tall and majestic that it made the Ecur one look like a small hill.

Mount Baker, the highest peak in Northumberland, stood solemnly like a king over the other mountains of the range and dominated the landscape. 

On the left of the mount, other mountains with jagged peaks like spiers of a natural cathedral increased the wild charm of that place, while on the right, there was the largest glacier of the emerged lands, a perennial source of pure water, that created two different torrents, one that ran southward, and the other that descended in a serpentine eastward, toward the prairies and the plains.

But it wasn’t only the snow-capped peaks that captured the eye. A forest of conifers stretched out in front of John, the densest and most luxuriant forest he had ever seen.

In comparison, all the other mountains he had seen in his life seemed barren and shriveled.

This luxuriant forest was a hymn to life and fertility, especially now, at the beginning of spring. Along the slopes, now gentle, now steep, he could distinguish the different shades of green of the various species of plants: lower down dominated the deciduous trees, beeches, oaks, walnuts and chestnut trees, that now began to be covered with buds, rising higher it was the spruce, with its perennial dark and serious green, to be the master of the forest, while towards the top of the mountains only the bright green larches dared to grow, defying the altitude, the wind and the more rigid temperatures, with their trunks standing up to the sky.

Fort Barts was at the feet of this wonder of nature and apparently seemed like a good place to stop.

"The journey ends here, chap," said the wagon driver, arresting the horses.

To thank him for the passage John slipped a silver coin into his hand and then tried to help him to unload the sacks of wheat but, with his crutch, he just ended up slowing him down.

"Thanks anyway, but I’ll be faster if I do it alone," said the man with a tense smile, so John picked up his bag and headed towards the center of the village, that was large enough to have, in addition to the church and the palace of the chief magistrate, also a post office, warehouses, a mill and a public granary, a carpenter's shop, a blacksmith, several greengrocers and butcher shops, and two inns: after all, it stood at the intersection of three roads, the west one leading to the county town, the east one leading to the capital city, and the south one, from which he had come.

John went to the smaller inn, because it made him a better impression: it was clean and well looked after, like a private house, with colorful flower vases on the windows. 

The old owner, Madonna Martha Hudson, greeted him, made him sit at the counter, handed him black bread, cheese and red wine, and answered John's questions about the Fort.

"Do you think you'll settle here, Mr. Watson?" She asked. In the woman's voice there was no suspicion or hatred, only curiosity, and it was such a positive change compared to the treatment he had hitherto suffered, that John opened up in a smile.

"I can’t go further to the north, so I hope to find a job here to support me."

"Oh, then you should talk to our chief magistrate. Mr. Anderson!" The woman said aloud, in the direction of a bearded man who was shamelessly flirting with a maid.

"Madonna Hudson, what can I do for you?"

"This good man is looking for a job."

The public official looked at him doubtfully. 

"Say chap, what can you do?"

"I am quite familiar with herbs and medicinal plants, if you need an apothecary."

Anderson sniffled in disdain. 

"No way, in our village we already have a real doctor, Dr. Stamford, who studied at the University of the capital city, we don’t need that... witchcraft. Maybe I could find a job for you in my carpenter's shop... oh!” The man stopped as soon as he saw John's crutch resting on the stool. “But it’s a job that requires a strong build and a full ability. Frankly, I don’t know if there is a job for you in the village."

Apparently Mrs. Hudson was the only exception of kindness and human solidarity, all the others were like the people John had already met: hateful, suspicious, annoyed by the presence of useless war veterans. But if they didn’t want him there, also John was sick of other people.

"I could settle in the forest above the village" he ventured: that place had struck him at first glance because of its beauty.

The maid, hearing this, immediately came forward, waving her hands: "Stay away from that place, it's cursed."

"Sally!” Madonna Hudson scolded her, “don’t scare our guest."

"Cursed? A so beautiful forest?"

"You come from the south and don’t know anything about this territory, but Madame Donovan is right: there is no more cursed place in the world than that forest," urged Mr. Anderson.

Intrigued, John offered him a glass of wine to invite him to tell more.

"We simply call it the Cursed Forest, we have never even given it a name, because the spirits that live there might think we want to take possession of it, and their wrath would be unleashed against us."

John chewed a bite of bread and cheese without replying, but he was very sceptical: spirits, gnomes, goblins and strange creatures were an invention of the superstitious minds of men, foolish answers to things they didn’t understand.

Anyway, he had never met them and didn’t think they really existed.

"Don’t you believe me?” asked the chief magistrate, in front of his dubious face. “Well, you must know that over the centuries, several times men have tried to conquer that Forest and every time unspeakable misfortunes have come upon them. The Ancient Chronicles speak of a sanguinary war between mankind and the fairy creatures of the Forest that took place many centuries ago. But it’s not all: have you heard about the Great Plague? It originated from the Cursed Forest!"

Oh yes, John remembered that devastating epidemic very well, because when he and his sister were children, their mother used to tell them some stories about that terrible period and the contagious disease that almost exterminated the population of Northumberland and of the neighboring kingdoms, two hundred years before.

"And then, about a hundred years ago, a local nobleman tried to take possession of the Forest again, occupying it with a small army, and this provoked another tragedy that hit the region. It rained, rained, rained for weeks without stopping, the land was soaked with water, so much that it turned into a swamp, and one early morning, a stream of water and mud burst from the Forest, causing both torrents to overflow and sweep away everything, destroying Fort Barts and many other villages. Did you notice how much the Fort is far from the torrent now? Our ancestors were forced to rebuild it here."

Madonna Hudson became thoughtful. "Who knows, maybe the Forest reacts to the intentions of men, Mr. Anderson: do you remember the anchorite who, about fifty years ago, decided to settle in the Forest and live on meditation and prayer? He didn’t cause any misfortune."

"But he was just a fool! And anyway he disappeared without a trace, he was killed by the evil spirits of the Forest, too."

"Oh, but that's not all," Sally added. "Looking at it from the outside, the Forest looks rich and fertile, but it's just a deception: the soil taken from there and brought to the valley turns out to be sterile and doesn’t sprout any plants, mushrooms and wild berries collected in its woods rot and become inedible within a few hours, so it’s impossible to sell them at the market, the meat of the wild animals living there is hard and towy, the timber obtained from its trees is not good for any purpose: the larches used for the mainmast of the ships always break, and the sawed spruces used to make furnishings and roof shingles are worming and splitting." [1] [2]

"Every stone, every plant, every grain of dust from that Forest is cursed for mankind," Anderson concluded. "It’s a madness to want to live there."

"But you said that I would hardly find a job here in the village," said John, who wasn’t at all impressed by the apocalyptic story: in ten years of war he had seen what atrocities the human spirit was capable of, and he had been a witness of such horrors that a forest, cursed or not, didn’t scare him at all. 

He also thought that the legends that revolved around those woods were only the result of a superstition, a bit like Hazel's harmless amulets made of bones and shells.

"Yes, this is true, but you could try in some other town."

"No, I'm tired of traveling."

"The forest will kill you," Sally snapped. "Don’t you care about that?"

"If it will happen, it means that it have to happen," John concluded, shrugging.

"But what will you do up there? What will you eat? At best, you will die of starvation."

"I will buy what I need here at the Fort, and I will cultivate the land," the former soldier answered with a quiet smile, and added within himself:  _ "For the time that I will live." _

Mr. Anderson and Sally surrendered in front of his stubbornness, exchanging a quick glance that told John that they considered him as crazy as that old anchorite, and they left him to his frugal lunch.

When he had finished, the innkeeper took an old yellow parchment from under the counter, a map, and handed it to John. 

"Even if the things that Sally and Mr. Anderson have said are true, when I was a child, sometimes I went to play at the edge of the Forest and it never hurt me, so maybe it will be kind to you too. This is the easiest track, even if it’s still very hard, but the map stops at the end of the first rise, unfortunately: I don’t know anyone who has gone further."

"It's better than nothing, thanks."

John put the map in his pocket and then reached the open market, because he wanted to buy seeds and food supplies.

But first he needed a beast of burden to carry all those things.

He still had almost all his gold coins, but a horse was definitely too expensive, both to buy and to keep, a donkey or a mule was more suitable for him.

He wandered around the cattle fence, assessing the various animals, when he saw a man trying to drag a large mule inside.

The animal had firmly planted his hoofs on the ground and didn’t want to move, perhaps because inside the fence there were some very exuberant young horses, biting and kicking all the time, and the mule seemed to want to stay aside, far from the scuffle: he was a little like him, John thought.

"Move, you stupid beast!” The owner screamed, “or I swear that instead of selling you alive, I’ll turn you into steaks."

"Is the mule for sale?" John inquired.

"If you can make it move, it's yours for three gold coins."

"Here, take them."

John took the reins of the mule, stroked him on the snout to calm him, and pulled the reins in the opposite direction of the fence: the animal, once he understood that he was going to a quieter place, let himself be guided meekly.

The other man, as soon as he spotted the coins that John had with him inside the jacket, tied a rope around the neck of a goat and chased him.

"Good man, do you also want a beautiful goat? She's called Betta, she makes an excellent milk and her wool will keep you warm during the winter months, it's yours for ten silver coins."

The goat, to tell the truth, was rather unkempt, but the idea of a glass of fresh milk in the morning didn’t displease him, so John bought her.

Satisfied, the man went back to the cattle fence, where his son waited for him. The boy seemed rather agitated: "Father, Betta has never had milk, that’s the reason why we decided to slaughter her."

"That’s his problem now: if he comes back to complain, we'll just tell him that it’s not our fault, it’s him that can’t take care of the animals properly."

John left the market with also some chicks locked in a cage, bear and ram furs, flour and seeds, but not in excessive quantities, because he didn’t want to tire the mule too much: once decided where to settle in the Forest, he would come back down to the village to buy what he lacked.

Since it was too late to hike in the Forest, he went back to Madonna Hudson's inn to sleep there, and left in the morning, after dawn, letting himself to be guided by the old woman's map.

Almost no one set foot in the Forest, ever, the track wasn’t looked after, John had to walk avoiding shrubs and protruding roots, and the first stretch of the rise was really hard, the woman hadn’t lied.

Betta and the mule (named Rodrigo by John) walked without too much effort, but for him it was another matter, despite being a soldier accustomed to exhausting long walks; the temperature early in the morning was still cold, but soon John found himself covered in sweat and stopped several times to catch his breath.

The two animals had a curious attitude towards him: they walked about twenty meters away, then seemed to remember about his presence and stopped to wait for him, looking at him,  almost amused at his slowness.

"I would like to see you, with only two legs, and one of them not so good," John muttered.

At the top of the first rise, the path leveled slightly, but at the same time it narrowed, passing by a damp gorge. On the bottom of it, the torrent roared ferociously, and John was very relieved when they all passed that stretch, so exposed to wind and water: if he wanted to return to Fort Barts often, it was a good idea to equip the rocky wall with a safety rope.

Shortly thereafter, the rise got steep again, but after some time walking, John began to notice something strange: on the ground there were boulders arranged too artfully to be simply the result of natural events, some stones were squared and polished, and they remembered a flight of steps. Besides, among the thick trees, there was an unusual emptiness that didn’t seem random: they were all traces of an ancient track, dating back perhaps many centuries before, now in ruins and almost completely swallowed by the forest, but still visible to a careful eye.

John knelt, caressing a stone polished by the passage of time: who had bothered to build a path in that forest that, cursed or not, was still a remote and almost inaccessible place? And where did it lead, if nobody lived there? 

He couldn’t think of any plausible answer, but since it was always better to follow a path than to grope randomly, John stayed on that phantom track.

When the sun was at its edge, he stopped to eat and drink near a stream of clear and fresh water, and rested until the muscles of his legs stopped aching, while Betta and Rodrigo quietly grazed grass, and the chicks in the cage were lazily slumbering.

A large crow settled on the branch of a young oak tree, that swayed under its weight, and stood staring at John with his bright black eyes, not at all intimidated by his presence: humans in that place were rare, except for some adventurous poachers, he was probably the first one the crow saw, and for the bird John was something more interesting than scary.

Amused, John broke off a small piece of black bread and threw it to the ground: immediately the crow glided down to pick it up, but didn’t eat there, it collected the bread in its beak and flew away.

"Come on, let's go. I hope to find a clearing where to pitch the tent, sooner or later." 

He got up, retrieved his crutch and started walked with his animals.

A little further on, a squirrel caught his attention: the animal was on the ground, gnawing at a pinecone, but as soon as it saw John, it climbed a branch, from where it sent threatening squeaks, puffing up its tail like a cat.

"Calm down, calm down, I don’t want to hurt you, I'm just passing through. Here, see? I'm leaving."

The squirrel climbed up a higher branch and stood looking at John a little longer, then, leaping from branch to branch, disappeared into the woods.

In that stretch of the path, trees were thicker than ever and the rays of sun hardly reached the ground: the spruces had thus protected from bad weather the traces of the ancient track, now more evident: once it was used a lot, there was no doubt, because some stone steps were concave in the middle, where boots and hoofs stepped on more often, perhaps in an era dating back to the Ancient Chronicles, and at that point John was terribly curious to know where the path would take him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] In the past centuries the larch was considered one of the most suitable tree for the mast of the sailing ships, as it has a very straight trunk, with few knots, and it’s very resistant to the elements. The Republic of Venice used the larches of the valleys of Trentino (Italian region) for the ships of its fleet.
> 
> [2] Roof shingles: these are wooden squares, typical of the alpine areas, used to cover the roofs of huts and cabins.


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John find a empty cabin in the Cursed Forest, and decides to stay there.  
> However, his arrival arouses quite a stir between the Custodian, the fauns who protect that place; in particular, Sherlock is fascinated by the human.

The track came near the torrent again and, in that stretch, the water fell from above, creating an imposing waterfall.

"I hope it’s far enough from the water," John mumbled, worried about the wet rocks and the tall, slippery grass, but luckily the path ran to the right, far from the water jump, and it was sufficiently exposed to the sun to be dry despite the surrounding humidity: whoever had built it knew what he was doing.

That stretch was particularly steep and difficult, but at the end of the rise, John was rewarded with a breathtaking view: the valley literally opened wide and the trees gave way to a huge, flat and sunny clearing, protected from the winds and, in the background, Mount Baker stood majestically.

The green meadows enclosed in that natural amphitheater were dotted with brightly colored flowers; the yellow of the dandelion and the blue of the wild chicory stood out, and numerous bees and multicolored butterflies moved from flower to flower in search of nectar.

John advanced slowly, overwhelmed by the almost violent beauty of that place, and didn’t immediately notice a singular anomaly of the landscape, but after a while something finally caught his attention: over the hump of a little hill he seemed to see the roof of a small house, even if, according to the stories of the inhabitants of Fort Barts it was impossible, because no man had ever lived in the Forest.

_ "But they didn’t even know this ancient path," _ John reminded himself. 

In the end, it seemed that the Forest kept some secrets for real, but the surprises for him didn’t end there: walking along the torrent, which flowed calm in the clearing, John came across orderly heaps of stones, the remains of the houses of an ancient village that, at some point, must have collapsed under the weight of winter snowfalls or perhaps washed away by a flood of the torrent.

Farther away, far from the torrent, almost in the center of the clearing, there was actually a cabin, that should be of the same age of those collapsed.

But it was an unexplained contradiction, because it was still intact.

For the first time since he had entered the Forest, John felt a shiver of fear and approached the cabin with a certain degree of wariness.

"Anybody there?" He shouted in a loud voice, instinctively bringing his hand to the musket; he waited a few minutes, then approached slowly, studying it carefully: the walls of the cabin were made of dry-stacked stones, and that clue placed the construction of the cabin more than two hundred years ago.

In fact, after the Great Plague that had decimated the population of many kingdoms, the art of dry-stacked stones walls had been lost, and no one had been able to build them as before. Artisans and workers who built them could neither read or write and unfortunately, once dead, they brought their knowledge on the construction techniques in the grave with them.

Although the cabin was therefore very old, the roof was still standing. Of course, some roof shingles had fallen, others had split because of the bad weather, but overall the condition of the roof was extraordinarily good; it seemed almost impossible that it held up for who knows how many winters without maintenance, and it didn’t collapse, especially if the tales of the villagers about how bad the timber in those woods was, were true. 

The window frames were bolted, the door was closed, but not locked, and John needed only a strong shove to make it open: dust and cobwebs covered everything, shrubs and weeds had grown in the cracks of the floor, but, all things considered, the furnishing of the cabin wasn’t in a bad condition: it was as if the owner of that little house had left for a long journey and could come back sooner or later.

John looked around, nodding to himself: that place seemed made especially for him. It was a godsend, to be honest, that would have saved him the enormous effort of having to build a house from nothing.

The cabin consisted of a single large room, with a stone fireplace leaning against the east wall; the furnishing was very basic: a table, a bench leaning against the wall and a couple of chairs, a sideboard, a wardrobe and a trunk; above the bench a wooden ladder led to a mezzanine, where there were the remains of some jute cloths, now completely devoured by moths, but that had once been part of a mattress. A door on the west side of the cabin led to another smaller room with a dirt floor and another mezzanine for the hay: a small barn. The roof here was in worse condition, full of holes, but nothing that couldn’t be repaired with a few days work.

John opened the barn door and let the animals in.

"What do you say, do you like your new home?"

Betta and Rodrigo approached the small bushes grown inside the room, eating them with gusto, evidently satisfied with their new house; after the long hike John was too tired to check if the chimney worked or if it was blocked by bird's nests or branches, so he stayed to sleep in the small barn, wrapped in the ram fur and cradled by the warmth of his animals.

 

Beyond that clearing and another mountain, with its sides so steep that no sane man would have thought of climbing them, another small valley opened up, even more reclusive than the one discovered by John, but beautiful as a fairytale garden, dotted with trees with strange fruits, that you would have found nowhere else in the world, bushes and shrubs covered with flowers of incredible colors, surrounded by caves whose walls were dotted with precious gems. 

At the center of the little valley stood Yggdrasil, the evergreen Great Tree of Life, that seemed to extend its branches towards the sky and the earth in great protective embrace.

At its feet there was a small perfectly round pond; its water was so dark, it made you doubt that it had a bottom, and was surrounded by a ring of round stones on which were carved mysterious runes. [1]

At dusk, a murmur of several voices chanting in an ancient language unknown to humans, broke the silence of the valley.

"Do you know? A crow has speak: a man entered the Forest."

"Yes, we knew, the news has run fast among the animals."

"He doesn’t seem like the usual wicked hunters, he has gone very far into the woods."

"Where is him?"

"He has reached the cabin in the great clearing."

"What does he want?"

"He's a human being, nothing good."

"Let's kill him."

"Yes, let’s kill him immediately, before he spreads his gall and defiles this holy place."

"Let’s open the Portal, so the Spirit of the Forest will kill him in the more appropriate way."

A laugh of mockery arose in the melody of the voices, breaking its harmony, like a grating, jarring note. "You are pathetic! If it was up to you, you would open the portal even to decide what to eat."

"How dare you speak like that?"

"How dare you! Are you listening to yourselves? You despise humans because they kill innocent creatures, but then you pretend to behave the same way, and get away with it."

All the voices fell silent, mortified by those words, until another voice, more firm and authoritarian that the others, resounded: "It will be the Forest to decide the fate of the human, as it has always been. As for you, brother, your tongue will be your ruin, one day."

"It's true, your brother should be punished for his impudence."

"Impudence? Now, is it how you call telling the truth?"

"Brother!"

"I'm leaving, you're boring and I can’t stand you anymore."

"I haven’t finished talking to you."

"But I did."

A clatter of hooves echoed on the ground, moving away, then the voices started talking again, more annoyed than ever: "Your brother is a rebel, and this will not bring him any good."

"Like a fawn that ignores the calls of the mother, he will end up tumbling down in some crevice."

"If it will happen, it means that it have to happen," replied the authoritative voice, unaware that he had uttered the same words of John Watson, the human.

"Don’t you care about his fate?"

"My duty is solely toward the Forest, I can’t be distracted by brotherly feelings. The meeting is over." 

Other steps moved away, and finally a whisper ran into the small valley.

"The Supreme Custodian is indeed an ice creature."

 

John awoke numb despite the fur covering him: at that altitude it was still very cold during the night, compared to the village down the valley, so, if he really wanted to settle there, it was essential to arrange the cabin to be habitable, as soon as possible.

He let the animals out of the barn to graze and roam freely around, but he checked them from time to time: he had no reason to doubt that the Forest was the home of bears, foxes, and packs of wolves.

He explored the clearing, going back toward the waterfall, where, the day before, he had already noticed a large moss-covered boulder that rose from the ground. It looked like those ancient pagan monoliths that John had seen around the Kingdom when he was at war. 

He took a flat stick from the ground and scraped away some of the moss that covered it, discovering that the stone had some incisions on it, straight and curved lines, and strange symbols, undoubtedly carved by human hand in an ancient language that he didn’t understand at all: another of the many mysteries of those woods.

John walked back, inspecting the torrent bank: in the clearing it curved into a shallow bight, and he could easily draw water from there whenever he needed, to drink and wash; then he inspected the surroundings of the cabin, and identified a zone where he could create a vegetable garden.

Not far away, he noticed three large granite rocks that formed a sort of natural pyramid, with some wooden planks in front of them, now rotten because of the bad weather. 

John walked to it, removed the planks and, to his surprise, saw that someone had used that natural cavity like a shed for tools: there were an ax, a pair of saws, carpenter's tools and even a grindstone to sharpen the metal. 

John would have expected to find only an unusable pile of worm-eaten wood, rust and dust, but the tools were very poorly damaged, just like the cabin, and a grinding would be enough to remove the rust that has settled down on the metal parts. In one corner of the shed there were other curious objects: some branches of sawn wood, planed or partially carved and then left there, as if someone had wanted to find out what the various tools were for.

"Weird, really weird," John muttered, then he used the grindstone to sharpen the ax and the saws, and went to work on the cabin, because the roof wouldn’t be repaired by itself.

Anyway, he kept thinking about what could have happened to the owners of that cabin and those that have collapsed: did they emigrate because they were tired of living in such a remote place? Did they die because of the Great Plague or other natural disasters? Would the same fate have happened to him?

His hands stopped for a moment while they were turning the shingles on the roof: he wasn’t afraid of death. After all, nothing would have changed if he lived or died, his disappearance wouldn’t have affect anyone, and wouldn’t have made any difference to the world. And, well, he thought, looking up at Mount Baker, there were far more miserable places on this earth: he had seen them.

It was lovely there, it was quiet.

It was a good place to die.

Or to live, even.

A gust of wind lifted a cloud of dandelion seeds, that hovered lazily in the air, before embarking on their journey, and John decided to live like that his first days in the Forest, being guided by Fate and events.

He drank a sip of water from the goatskin flask hanging from his belt, and shifted his attention to the chimney of the cabin.

Focused on his work, he didn’t notice two gray eyes that looked intently at him from the edge of the wood.

 

The fantastic creatures that frightened the inhabitants of Fort Barts existed for real.

The villagers imagined them to be grotesque and hideous, but they were graceful and pleasing to the eye, similar to fauns: they walked on two legs and the upper part of their body was like that of humans, while the lower one remembered that of a deer.

They had a short, soft tail and large deer ears, and a little black nose, their body was covered with a short and thin hair, whose color ranged from burnt brown, to hazelnut, to gray, and that left face, neck and hands glabrous, and the adults had antlers on their head. 

They had the gift of speech and communicated with each other in an ancient language that dated back to the the dawn of time and had never changed; they fed on grass, berries and the fruits of Yggdrasil, some of which gave them supernatural powers, and they were known by all animals of the Forest as the Custodians.

However, they weren’t the ones to cause the disgraces that broke down on mankind from time to time, not directly at least: they were provoked by the Spirit of Forest itself, that couldn’t bear to be robbed because of the greed of humans, so it made sure that its goods were immediately ruined outside its borders, and that misfortunes and accidents happened on those who entered the Forest with a hostile or greedy mind.

The task of the Custodians, since the origins of the world, was to guard and protect that unique Forest and Yggdrasil, eternal source of life and hope, to settle disputes among the different animal species, and to defend the borders of the Forest from humans, who were judged by the Custodians with mistrust and contempt, and considered to be parasites of this earth.

To carry out the will of the Spirit of the Forest, the Custodians used the Portal, the small dark pond next to Yggdrasil, that only apparently was a harmless pool of water: when the Custodians gathered around it, reciting ancient spells known only by them, the runes engraved on the stones around the Portal lit up, the waters of the pond swirled in a dark whirlpool, and from the depths of the earth powerful currents of magic spilled out and struck humans.

It could be a mephitic wind carrying diseases, as in the case of the Great Plague, or a column of light rising up to the sky and gathering black clouds laden with storms, as in the case of the floods that had hit the region, or swarms of locusts that destroyed the crops.

It hadn’t always been like that: in ancient times Custodians and humans had lived in peace and harmony in that marvelous Forest, but over the centuries things had changed, the soul of men had become spoiled and corrupted, and a terrible war broke out.

In the Ancient Chronicles there were only vague and imprecise fragments of tales about that war, because the Custodians retired in the Forest and humans lost contact with them.

Now the Council of Custodians, led by the Supreme Custodian Mycroft, looked with extreme hostility to the human John Watson, who had settled in the cabin in the great clearing.

That cabin was the only human dwelling left standing after the end of the war between Custodians and Humans, by the will of the Forest itself, that had preserved it from the floods and prevented it from deteriorating over the time, thanks to its magical powers. 

The reason for this preservation was obscure even to the Custodians, as the Spirit of the Forest didn’t always share its motivations with them, but most of them, including Mycroft, believed it was a reminder to them, to not to trust human beings.

His younger brother Sherlock, anyway, thought differently.

Of course he too was diffident and wary towards humans, like his people, but he had always felt a strange fascination for their tools, houses, clothes, and language; besides he had a strong curiosity for the huge world that existed beyond the confines of the Forest, that often felt too narrow to him.

It had been Sherlock, over the years, to take care of the maintenance of that cabin and the tools of the shed; since he was a child, he didn’t get along very well with his people (he considered them boring idiots) and he liked more to spend his days there, instead of in the caves in Yggdrasil’s garden, where all the other Custodians lived, and he fantasized about what human's life could be, in that strange house made of stones and wood.

Initially Sherlock had believed that the human who had arrived in the great clearing some days before, was just one of the rare poachers who occasionally ventured into the Forest to kill the animals with those terrifying firearms, but as the days passed, he had to change his mind: the human (who had become “The Man” in his head) had some animals with him, had repaired and cleaned the cabin from top to bottom, had dug a large area of land near it where he had planted seeds.

It seemed that he really wanted to live there, even if it was a weird decision to Sherlock: it was well known that humans were terrified of the Forest and its legends, so what motivated The Man to stay? Was he just a shallow and arrogant man or was there more?

For the first time, Sherlock found himself wanting to talk to him, to understand that human and why he decide to live there.

Sure, it was a little annoying that The Man had settled in the cabin that Sherlock considered 'his' to some extent, because this meant he couldn’t go there anymore, but observing him from a distance, intent in his daily activities, was extremely interesting.

 

The first days, John went down a couple of times to Fort Barts to buy more supplies for the winter and other things he needed, but since the village was a several hours walk away, with his slow and limping pace, and the path didn’t become easier with time, he promised himself to do it only in case of absolute necessity.

The war had taught him to have frugal habits, and he didn’t need many things to live; moreover, as soon as he arrived in that clearing, Betta had started to produce excellent milk, once the hens were grown, they made at least two eggs each day, and John made cheese, dried mushrooms and berries, made soap with clay, ashes, animal fat and flower essences, as Hazel had taught him, and with the precious help of Rodrigo he had plowed a portion of the lawn, creating a vegetable garden.

According to Mr. Anderson, nothing should have grown, but in the thick, black soil, many sprouts sprang up. To protect them from the birds, John hung Hazel's amulets around the garden: they wavered in the wind and frightened them.

Exploring the woods around the clearing, John discovered the presence of numerous wild hives, and he didn’t even have to destroy the honeycombs to collect honey, because it was so abundant that it dripped down from the hives: he just had put a bowl on the ground to collect in a short time enough honey to meet his needs. 

In the woods he had also discovered a grotto with a narrow opening, that someone, always in remote times, had expanded using hammer and chisel. The grotto housed a precious deposit of rock salt with rosy reflections, that John needed to dry and preserve the meat of the animals and the fishes he killed: now the good season was coming, and the food that Nature offered was abundant, but John knew from experience how short the summer was in the mountains. Those months would fly and autumn would come quickly, followed closely by the snowy and implacable winter.

If he wanted to survive, he had to stock up food for himself and his animals.

Did he want to survive?

He still wasn’t entirely sure, but, in any case, it was better to get ready now, than to despair then.

John often spoke aloud alone: he didn’t feel much nostalgia for people, after being used and thrown away by everyone, but the company of Rodrigo, Betta and the hens wasn’t really the best, and he would have liked to share his thoughts with someone, but it should have been someone very special, not like Mr. Anderson, Madame Donovan or his former betrothed.

John didn’t believe that this ‘special person’ really existed, it was just an ideal inside his head, but sometimes, while he was walking through the woods looking for mushrooms and berries, or when he came back from fishing on the torrent, he felt like he was observed by someone: years and years on the battlefield had sharpened his senses, and every now and then a shiver ran down his back, as if someone's gaze had settled on him, but he didn’t perceive any hostility in the air and wasn’t frightened.

After all, nothing bad had happened to him since he was there.

But it was probably all in his mind, because even if he looked carefully through the branches of trees and bushes, he never saw anyone: no, no one else lived there.

And so the days passed, and John continued to live, despite the dire predictions of the inhabitants of Fort Barts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Yggdrasil is part of the Norse mythology: it is the great cosmic tree that supports the worlds and the entire universe.  
> Here in this story, its role has been reinterpreted and resized, but it’s still a particular, magical tree.


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is more and more interested in John, and this arouses Mycroft's concern.   
> The elder brother asks him to stop going to watch the human, and instead to devote himself to the duties towards the Custodians, but Sherlock refuses stubbornly, even when Irene tries to blackmail him.

Sherlock sat on a rock, his thin deer legs dangling down, and he smelled the wind that came from south: though almost imperceptible, the air carried the smell of the wood burning in the chimney of the cabin down in the clearing, and perhaps even traces of the smell of The Man?

The Man had a very peculiar smell, though not as intense as the one of the Custodians, although he insisted on hiding it with a small square object that produced a strange foam that smelled of flowers. 

It was a gestures that was incomprehensible to Sherlock, and he really would like to be able to approach him and ask for explanations.

Mycroft came up behind him and turned his head in the direction from which the wind came.

"It's turned from south, it will rain tonight."

"Is it because of these pearls of wisdom that they have appointed you as the Supreme Custodian?"

"A rank to which you can never aspire, as long as you keep this deplorable attitude."

"I already told you that I’m not interested. And then it would be unseemly if the rank was passed between brothers, don’t you think? It would look like what happens in the realms of humans, and certainly the Council of Custodians wouldn’t accept something so degrading, because we are different, right?" He asked with a sarcastic smile, but his brother didn’t pick up the provocation.

"Speaking of humans, Gregory told me that you spend your days observing the one who has settled down in the clearing."

"Yes, so what?"

"He's just a human," Mycroft hissed with contempt, “a lower being who is only capable of killing and destroying. He is not worthy of our attention and of our time."

"And what is it, then? Counting the pebbles of the torrent, as you do?"

"Contemplation is a hallmark of us Custodians."

"Speak for yourself."

The two brothers couldn’t have been more different: Sherlock vibrated with energy, he was perennially moving around, was passionate about every strangeness and mystery that happened in the Forest, he did weird experiments with magic, and never followed the rules. 

Instead Mycroft was calm and thoughtful, almost indolent, and it took a wild fire or some other disgrace to see him agitated.

"Forget that human, Sherlock, it will not bring anything good to you or our people."

"If he were such a danger as you say, the Forest would have already killed him."

"Perhaps he is less dangerous than other men, I grant you that, but spending your day to look at what he does, is just a useless waste of time."

"Why?"

"His existence will not last long: humans live in groups, it is known, while he is alone. He is like an old and limping chamois, rejected from his herd because useless and sick, and he waits for death in solitude," concluded Mycroft with stern voice, but Sherlock clenched his fists angrily and still answered back, his mouth crooked in a smile of mockery: "To be a creature worthy of so little attention, you have observed him quite well."

Mycroft couldn’t reply immediately and blew from his nostrils, irritated: "As the Supreme Custodian, I have to control everything that happens in the Forest."

"Ah! Tell me a better one. "

"Forget the human, Sherlock," Mycroft insisted.

"Is it an order?"

"It will become so, if I deem it necessary."

"It's my life, I decide what to do with it!" Sherlock replied angry and hopped easily down the cliff.

"But I'm your brother, and I worry for you,” Mycroft muttered in the wind. “Gregory."

The Supreme Custodian called a faun that waited crouched behind some rocks not far behind.

"Yes?"

"Would it be too much a bother for you to keep watching that walking disgrace I've for a brother?"

Gregory smiled and rubbed his antlers lightly against those of Mycroft.

"Not at all. And then it's not difficult to follow him: there's only one place where he goes."

"I know, unfortunately I know."

Sherlock's curiosity about the human didn’t bode well.

 

Sherlock darted through the woods in the direction of the clearing, still troubled by the conversation he had with his brother: Mycroft was wrong, The Man wasn’t like all the other humans, and didn’t deserve the contempt of the Custodians.

He crouched behind a bush, his favorite vantage point, and looked at The Man, intent on strengthening the fence around his vegetable garden and the stakes on which the bean plants were climbing: two nights before the wild boars had tried to enter it and The Man had shot them down.

Every now and then The Man stopped, checking that the animals didn’t stray too far from the cabin, or caressed the mule on the snout, addressing some words that, from that distance, Sherlock couldn’t catch.

Yes, sometimes in the gestures and in the voice of The Man one could read a quiet resignation, but when he contemplated the work he had done that day, he seemed really happy, and Sherlock didn’t see him like a chamois coming to an end, but rather like a bear or a wolf who had chosen to live in solitude. 

Yes, he shot and killed some animals, but only because he had to eat to survive, or to defend himself, just like all carnivorous animals. Moreover, Sherlock had never seen him perform unnecessary slaughter, like the poachers who sometimes ventured to the slopes of the Forest did: The Man killed only to the extent that he needed to eat, and didn’t exhibit the carcasses of dead animals as a trophy.

There was only necessity in his gestures and not fun, and the Forest had accepted him.

He had accepted him, and nothing else mattered.

 

The next day Sherlock watched with trepidation The Man gathering his animals and leave the clearing: it had already happened a few times, and the Custodian deduced that he went down to the village, where he stayed one night before returning, bringing with him many strange and new smells, and even some new tools. 

The Man never left his animals alone in the barn next to the cabin, because they could have been devoured by the wild beasts: he cared for them and he didn’t want for them to get killed, so how could Mycroft and the other Custodians not see this? How could they continue to think that The Man was bad?

Sherlock became more and more convinced that hating The Man just because he was a human was wrong.

His momentary absence, however, gave Sherlock the opportunity to do something he wanted to do for some time: he waited for The Man to get away, and went into the refurbished cabin.

He was hit by a myriad of smells, some pleasant and familiar, like the fruit on the table or the hay used to stuff the bed, others decidedly less pleasant, like gunpowder, which filtered through the old trunk where he kept his hunting rifle, others simply very strange, like alcohol or soap.

He looked around, opened the sideboard and the trunk, studied with interest the linen, the dishes and the cutlery. 

One object in particular attracted his attention: a long metal cylinder that could be extended and retracted, with two convex glasses at both ends. Looking from one side, the objects appeared closer, on the other side they appeared far away, and Sherlock was so enchanted by it that he watched it for hours; only when the sunlight that filtered through the window hit his back, the Custodian realized that he had been rapt for too long and put it away, reproaching himself: there were still so many things to observe, he couldn’t focus only on one, for how interesting it was.

On the table there were a few wooden cubes engraved with numbers and words: Sherlock looked at them suspiciously, leaning over his face to sniff and touch them with his fingertips: what if they were like the magical runes of the Portal? It wasn’t his knowledge that human beings knew how to use magic, but one was never prudent enough.

The cubes were clean, a sign that The Man often touched them, probably every day, especially those with numbers.

"April," he muttered in a low voice, reading one of the cubes with the words, then sighed, throwing in the towel: no, he didn’t understand what it could be and what purpose it could serve, but it was undoubtedly an interesting enigma on which he would reflect for a long time, once he was back home. [1]

Once he was satisfied with his exploration, he climbed up the mezzanine where there was the bed of The Man: there his smell was more intense and Sherlock sank his face in the blankets. 

It was a strong, dominant smell; it wasn’t intimidating, but it certainly made him feel strange and confused: protected and safe, but also strangely excited, with his heart beating faster than usual. It was the same bizarre feeling he felt when he watched from a distance The Man work shirtless under the sun.

Sherlock sighed, resting his head on the pillow: the desire to approach The Man and talk with him was now undeniable. But despite his boldness and his contempt for the laws of the Custodians, he didn’t want to endanger his people and the Forest.

He couldn’t know how The Man would react to his sight; he could have been frightened and flee to never return, he could have come back with an army of men to fight and capture them, and that would have unleashed the wrath of the Forest again, as had happened in the past.

No, he didn’t know The Man enough to show himself to him, but in the depths of his heart Sherlock hoped he could do it one day. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to sleep on that bed, surrounded by that good smell.

The next day he reluctantly left the cabin in the early hours, because The Man never stayed away more than one night, and would come back soon: like him, he seemed not to love the company of other people, preferring the solitude of the woods, and in this they were very similar.

 

During springtime, Sherlock's intolerance for the other Custodians reached its peak, so he tried to stay away from them as much as possible, but sometimes he had to feed himself and return to Yggdrasil's garden.

Before going back to his cave, he crossed the torrent, plunging himself completely into the water and then he rolled in the grass, hoping that the smell of The Man on his body wasn’t too evident for the superfine and snooping noses of the other fauns.

He easily climbed the steep rocky wall of the mountain that protected Yggdrasil's garden, pulled a fruit from the tree and was about to reach his cave, when a familiar voice stopped him. 

"Hi Sherlock!"

Molly, a young Custodian, sat in the middle of a large bed made of intertwined spruce and larch branches and colorful flowers of all the shades of pink, and looked at him hopefully. 

“Come and sit here with me," she invited him, but Sherlock shook his head and hopped away, definitely unnerved.

That was the reason why he hated spring so much: it was the mating season, even for his species, and everyone became a imbecile, the male fauns in particular. They worked hard to build large nests with noisy colors, they argued, using the antlers to define who was the strongest, only to attract the attention of the females and find a companion.

Sherlock hated it, and had always found the mating season a useless waste of time and energy.

As far as he was concerned, he had no intention to choose a partner among them, or to procreate children, and certainly he wouldn’t waste his precious time and devastated the trees of the forest just to build a nest with some flowers that would be wilted in a few days. What a stupid thing to do!

"Poor Molly. You have broken her heart again," Mycroft said, standing near the caves, "it took her two days to build that nest."

"Nobody asked her to do it."

Mycroft sighed with obvious annoyance. 

"I see that you will ignore the duties towards your species even this year."

"You are insightful today, brother."

"You are the only adult male who doesn’t have a partner."

"What is it, Mycroft, suddenly you can’t do maths anymore?"

The elder brother folded his arms on his chest, defensively.

"You know very well that for me it’s different: the rank of Supreme Custodian requires me to concentrate all my energy on the preservation of the Forest, exempting myself from other duties."

"What a convenient excuse. Does it also apply to Gregory?"

"Don’t change the subject, we were talking about you."

"Leave me alone, Mycroft, I survive very well without a partner, in fact, I live better."

"It's humiliating enough that the females build the nest, hoping to get your attention, when you should do it. At least you might appreciate their effort."

"The only humiliating thing is to see how everyone becomes a cretin during spring."

"Sherlock!” Mycroft came up to him and sniffed the air. “You went again to watch the human."

"So what?"

"I told you to forget him."

Sherlock looked at Mycroft defiantly, making him understand that his demands didn’t matter to him, and that he wouldn’t obey him.

But Mycroft merely shrugged, shaking off that attitude, as he thought was it was childish.

"All right, enjoy your fun as long as it lasts."

"What do you mean?"

"This Forest is not made for men."

"You forget that it used to be, and humans and Custodians lived here in perfect harmony."

"But then men changed and their mind was corrupted: they became thirsty for power and wealth, greedy for gold and precious stones, so much that they kill each other to have more of them. They killed our people, Sherlock, you know that. This is why the Forest chased them away."

"But it didn’t chase away him, nor the anchorite who came here many moons ago: you keep talking about the Spirit of the Forest as if you knew every thought of it, but maybe you're wrong this time."

"No Sherlock: if the Forest hasn’t killed him yet, it's because it thought it was superfluous to do it, because it knows that your man will not get through the winter."

"He's storing food and wood, he's getting ready to face the winter."

"I’m not talking about his gestures, I’m talking about his spirit: he has the death in his heart, he has no hope, nothing important to cling to. When Nature will go to sleep, cold and snow will take him."

"You don’t know him, you can’t know!" Sherlock shouted angrily.

"Not even you: stop wandering around that pathetic creature and find a partner, Sherlock. If you don’t do it, you will end up being isolated from your own people, and you will die in solitude like that man. Is that what you want?"

"Always better than living a life that I don’t want."

"I know what's best for you."

"No brother, you never knew." 

Sherlock walked away to his cave with his heart in turmoil: he would never admit it to his brother, but the idea that The Man could let himself die with resignation caused him an unpleasant sorrow and an inexplicable agitation: it couldn’t be true.

He didn’t want it to be true, and he had a certain ability to correct things that he didn’t like.

Two females gave him flattering glances, inviting him in her caves, but he he ignored them ostentatiously: why couldn’t he hibernate like a bear and wake up at the end of the mating season? 

He didn’t want to dedicate to the females of his species one more minute of his time, it was much more urgent to think about what to do that winter, if indeed The Man was in trouble because of the cold and too depressed to resist: if it would serve to save his life, Sherlock was even willing to consider the idea of showing himself to him.

He entered his cave, determined not to talk to any of his people for as long as possible, but he found an unexpected guest: Irene, the most aggressive and sought-after female in the community.

She was one of the few creatures Sherlock admired, for her intelligence: they even talked from time to time and he didn’t mind her.

Too bad for her arrogance of dominant female, a feature of her personality that Sherlock despised greatly.

A single glance was enough for Sherlock to understand that Irene wanted to mate with him, and this made his mood even darker.

Irene sat brazenly on his bed, slowly chewing some berries and smiled invitingly.

"Let’s eat together."

"I'm not hungry."

"It doesn’t matter. Sit here with me.” She tapped a hoof on the leaves, “I don’t bite, if you don’t want."

"No."

"I see you haven’t changed your mind."

"And you will not make me change it."

"Are you sure?"

"At least Molly tried to build something, you just sat on my bed."

"First of all, you should be the one to build it, besides, manual work is not for me, I have other weapons to convince you." 

Irene tilted her head to one side and her thick black hair fell on her shoulder, while, from her big antlers some flower petals slipped to the ground. “I can’t wait to see some beautiful antlers appear on that little curly head of yours."

"What weapons would you own?"

"For example, I know about the books, my dear Sherlock."

The faun winced: many years before, an old anchorite had settled in the Forest, much lower than where The Man lived now, and lived for some months inside a natural cave, muttering senseless litanies to himself all day long. But since he had finally come to no longer feed or drink, saying that a certain 'god' would have provided food for him, he obviously died of starvation in a matter of weeks.

After his death, Sherlock had entered the cave, discovering that the anchorite had three books with him, written in the language of human: a children's book with stylized drawings to learn alphabet and words, a writing exercise book and a third book, initially too complicated for him. But Sherlock continued to return to the cave every day to study the alphabet, and using also the words heard from the men who sometimes ventured into the lower area of the Forest, he learned to read and write their language.

If he wished, it would have been enough for him to eat a Fruit of Knowledge that grew on Yggdrasil to instantly learn everything he wanted to learn, but Sherlock didn’t like simple tasks, or shortcuts.

For the Custodians, his action was vile and unseemly, there were even those who would have compared it to a crime against nature, because for them the only language worthy of being spoken was that of the Custodians: noble, ancient and not contaminated by contact with those inferior beings. 

But Sherlock’s curiosity was stronger than the prejudices, and relying only on his strength, he continued to improve, until he could also read the last book that the anchorite had with him, a sort of diary in which the man told of the places he had visited and the people he had met in his life.

The behavior of the ascetic man, who died of hunger and thirst, remained incomprehensible to Sherlock, but, by reading his books, the young Custodian began to develop his critical thinking and to think that not all men were as terrifying as the others Custodians described them.

"You aren’t already well seen in our community," Irene went on softly, tearing him from his memories, "what would happen if they discovered your little secret? Come on, sit in the nest with me," she smiled, sure that she had him in her hand, but Sherlock didn’t move, looking at her with a hostile expression, but again, Irene was unimpressed.

"You don’t frighten me, my dear: no matter how rebellious you are, you would never risk the exile from your people."

"Don’t be so sure, Irene: in this particular moment I don’t feel very fond of my people."

Sherlock blew his nostrils with contempt, but Irene kept smile, sure of herself.

"If you don’t come here, I will speak Sherlock, don’t doubt it, and you will regret not accepting my offer."

Sherlock rasped the ground with his hooves, raising a small cloud of dust that finally broke Irene self-confidence. She crouched down in a defensive position with her antlers forward.

"Speak, Irene, I don’t care at all about what the others think of me, but know that, in that case, I will speak too."

"About what?"

"About how your former companions suddenly died, just when you were fed up with them and your attention was attracted by a more important Custodian in the hierarchy."

"Mogy and Nagil were old."

"But I bet that the deadly nightshade that you mixed with the berries that you brought them to eat, has helped their departure."

"You have no proof of what you say. But I do: there are the books and your own writing exercises."

"It doesn’t matter, Irene: once the doubt have crept into the Council, I will not be denied the use of a Fruit of Truth of Yggdrasil, and make you eat it, to ascertain once and for all the circumstances of the death of your former companions."

Irene belled her disappointment, but Sherlock rasped the ground again with his hooves.

"Get out of my cave."

Irene rose and kicked the bed, undoing it.

"Worse for you! I just wanted to give you a push in the right direction, for your own good and that of our community, you know well that your brother agrees with me."

"One more reason to stay away from both of you."

"Mark my words: one day you will regret this attitude of yours, Sherlock."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] John’s objects that are so fascinating for Sherlock are a spyglass and a calendar made with wooden cubes.


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John starts to wonder if he's really alone in the clearing in the Forest, because sometimes he feels a presence in the woods.  
> Anyway, time goes by quickly, and winter is coming. Will be John strong enough to survive?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where the story begins to earn the E rating :)

Every time John returned to the village, he was less and less happy of being there, and tried to leave as soon as he could.

Save for Madonna Hudson, always sweet and kind to him, all the others villagers widened their eyes and exchanged unbelieving whispers when they saw him enter the inn, as if they had seen a ghost, and they pestered him with stupid questions: wasn’t he afraid? Wasn’t he dying of starvation in that hostile forest? Had he fight bears and other terrible beasts? Had he meet the Spirits or the Devil himself who surely lived in that place?

And this was nothing compared to what John was sure they said behind his back: that he was a nutter, a misanthrope, a fool, and that if he wasn’t dead, then the Forest must have cast a spell on him and now he was cursed, too.

So it was a relief to leave the inn the next morning, to return to his cabin in the hidden clearing in the heart of the Forest. 

Because of his bad leg, the path was always difficult for him, but now his body was more trained, and the coolness of the wind in the trees, the balsamic smell of the resin of the firs, the soft ground under his boots, refreshed his spirit and it made him feel less fatigue, to the point that, for the first time in ten years, John felt that he was returning to a place that looked like home, and once he reached the monolith at the edge of the clearing, he clapped a hand over it, in an almost affectionate gesture.

When he reached the clearing, he rinsed his face and neck in the torrent to wash away the sweat, freed his animals in the meadow, went into the cabin and stored the supplies he had bought at Fort Barts.

Then, since the vegetable garden didn’t need special care that day, and he was quite tired, he decided to indulge in an afternoon nap; he climbed up the ladder that led to the small mezzanine where the bed was and realized that some animal had entered the cabin in his absence.

In fact the bed was untidy and, in a crack of the wood of the mezzanine, John found a tuft of very light beige hair stuck in: too short to belong to a wolf and too soft and silky to be belong to a wild boar.

The man frowned, stroking those light hair absentmindedly: how did a quadruped climb up the ladder? It seemed impossible to him, because even Betta couldn’t do it, and she climbed easily even on the steepest cliffs; moreover he had left some fruit on the table and some dried meat hanging above the fireplace, but the animal hadn’t touched them. 

Yet it wasn’t just his paranoia, someone had been there, without doubts, because the smell of wild animal was very intense in his bed.

John had never given ear to the stories full of superstition of Mr. Anderson or Madame Donovan, yet now he wondered if there was something true in the legends about the strange creatures that inhabited that mysterious forest. 

After all it wasn’t the first that he felt he wasn’t alone in that clearing, that he has been watched by someone when he was walking in the woods or working in the vegetable garden.

However, if these creatures really existed, they seemed far less threatening and terrifying than the villagers had painted them, seeing how shy they were: it was probably his presence there that frightened them.

He came out of the door and looked around: there were only trees, trees and trees and the tall grass of the clearing that his animals were grazing placidly, occasionally lifting their snout to drive away the annoying flies.

"You don’t have to be afraid of me, I don’t want to hurt you," he said aloud in the wind, and he didn’t even feel too stupid, no more stupid than when he spoke with Betta or Rodrigo. 

He stood there for a few minutes: no answer came from the clearing, but he heard a rustling somewhere in the woods to his right, so he whirled around in that direction and saw a pale spot disappearing in the distance among the trees: maybe it was a deer, even if the curvature of the back seemed rather strange, but it was too far away to be able to affirm it with certainty.

 

Sherlock ran away into the woods with his heart in turmoil: now The Man knew of his existence.

He had been uncertain until the end about fixing the bed as he had found it, or leaving a trace of his passage, because, after all, he had been spying on him since he had arrived there, while The Man completely ignored his existence, and somehow this didn’t seem right. 

When he was far enough, he leaned against the trunk of a centuries-old spruce and slid to the ground to catch his breath: he had taken a big risk and was still not sure he had done the right thing, but he hoped the the idea of not being all alone in the Forest could alleviate the melancholy he sometimes saw in The Man.

 

Since he started living there, John had no long-term plans, and he hadn’t questioned himself about his future (the last time he had done it, he was left disappointed and hurt, so why waste time again?)

Nevertheless, it was the new life that he led, to press and force him to think about tomorrow: after a rainy and humid May, the summer had exploded with its warmth and its fruits, but June had given way with surprisingly rapidity to July, and John knew well that at those latitudes, with August the summer would already be over; if he had been lucky, September would have still given many days of good weather, but the cold would have become pungent, the days dramatically short, the earth would have stopped producing its fruits and when even the resistant dandelion would have faded, the winter would have arrived.

So he was forced to think about what to do for the coming months: using the wax of an abandoned beehive to make candles, collecting branches to make bundles and chopping wood every day, checking that the roof shingles were in order and plugging the cracks in the walls of the cabin with the resin to isolate it from the cold. 

And then he had to think about the food supplies for his animals: not only hay, but also seeds, grains, nuts and chestnuts when the season would come, and for himself he made fruit and honey preserves, dried beans, vegetables, salt meat and fish (the small vein of rock salt found in the wood had been a blessing to him).

After a few close encounters with his rifle, the wild boars left his garden in peace, and even the wolves just howled from afar because the sounds of shots in the air kept them at a distance.

One day, a young bear had tried to attack Rodrigo, but the mule had defended himself admirably with two kicks on the snout that had left the predator stunned enough to allow John to shoot him down. [1]

Bear's meat wasn’t very good, but the military life had taught John that if something was edible, you should eat it without fuss, for perhaps the next day there wouldn’t have been that either; and the fur of the animal, as well as those of the wild boars, would have prevented him from dying frozen in winter.

One early morning, John went out for a hunt and after a few hours of walking, he caught sight of a female roe deer on the other side of the torrent, with his spyglass. She was thin and her hair was dull: probably she was quite old, but it was better than nothing. Moreover, the situation was ideal, because the roar of the water covered the sounds of his footsteps and John was downwind, he wouldn’t have missed such an easy target. 

He checked the rifle's lighter, took aim and put his finger on the trigger, but suddenly a movement on the right of the animal caught his attention, and he stopped: from the tall grass a fawn jumped on a boulder and chased the flight of a butterfly, before being distracted by a hornet; when he got too far away, the mother called him back, and the fawn ran back to her, rubbing his nose against hers, with a tenderness that John had seen rare times, even among humans.

If he killed his mother, the fawn would have no hope of survival: he was too small, he would be dead before sunset.

John's stomach protested as he crawled away in silence so as not to disturb the two animals, but his heart felt lighter, and after all he still had one or two mouthfuls of hare stew, it would have been enough.

From a peak, Sherlock watched with admiring eyes The Man returning to his cabin: how much he wanted to show that scene to the other Custodians, especially to his brother!

He was right: The Man was even better than a bear or a wolf, because he not only killed for necessity and not for pleasure, but he also knew compassion and pity.

The desire to talk to him grew inside Sherlock.

The day after the fruitless hunt, John was in his cabin repairing a chair, when he heard a knock on the door: cautiously, he opened it and saw a huge trout lying in front of him; he picked it up by the tail and gasped: that was the biggest river fish he had ever seen, and would provide him with a substantial nourishment for a couple of days, but how on earth had it end up there from the torrent?

Perhaps a wolf had approached the cabin with the fish between his teeth and was frightened by the sound of nails and hammer? But in that case his animals would have been frightened, running away in all directions, instead they were absolutely peaceful, grazing grass like every day. Besides, the fish didn’t show signs of bites, but the mouth was jagged and torn, as if it were been hooked by a rudimentary tool similar to a fishing hook.

Did someone (a creature from the Forest?) catch the trout for him and leave it in front of his door as a gift? He didn’t understand why someone would have to give him such a present, and yet that was the idea that made its way into his head.

"Er... thank you!" cried John. He remained motionless for a few moments, hoping to get a nod, or an answer, but only the crickets were silent for a moment, annoyed by his scream, then started to chirp as if nothing had happened. 

"Thanks," he repeated again, and then went back into his house.

Sherlock didn’t understand the meaning of that word, but The Man seemed happy and, strangely, that made him happy too.

Hidden in the shadow of the monolith on the edge of the clearing, Sherlock rubbed his chest. He felt a strange feeling of warmth every time he approached the cabin of The Man, and once again he wondered what was happening to him: the more he watched him, the more he felt confused, and sometimes it scared him, but sometimes it made him feel good.

A very hot afternoon at the end of August, after spending the morning picking up potatoes, John undressed completely and allowed himself a long refreshing swim in the calm bight of the torrent, that was almost a small natural pool. 

When the fingertips of his hands wrinkled, John realized it was time to get out of the water, but the idea of drying himself in the rough cotton cloth wasn’t pleasant to him; a little further on there was a huge boulder completely exposed to the sun, and John lay down on it, spreading his legs and arms like a starfish, and sighed with contentment: the day wasn’t windy, the sun shone high and strong in the sky, pleasantly warming his moist skin, and for once John's mind was free of thoughts and worries. He listened the chirping of crickets and grasshoppers, the tweeting of tits and wrens, the flow of the torrent, he felt the sun that dried his skin, and he simply existed, free from weights and restraints.

He slid his left hand across his chest, almost unconsciously first, then with purpose, stroking himself to the navel and then back again to the nipples, that hardened immediately under his attentions, while a moan of pleasure escaped his lips.

When he was at war, he always had to satisfy the urgencies of his body in silence and under the covers, at night, a stealthy hand that slipped between his legs, his lips tight not to cry, and even the rare times he had gone into a brothel, it had been so secretly and so quickly that he was never fully satisfied, because everyone had always said him that every sexual act outside of marriage was a horrible sin and an offense to God.

But now, as he was lying in the sun and exploring his body, getting excited and giving himself pleasure, he couldn’t think of anything healthier and more natural than that; he was in no hurry, he had no fear of being seen by anyone, so he continued to lazily stroke his body for several minutes before grabbing his erection, that throbbed in his hands.

"Oh! Oh yes!" He panted loudly, licking his lips. He ran his hand up and down the shaft without haste, because he didn’t want it to end too soon, he wanted to spoil himself and enjoy that pleasure for as long as possible; he played with the foreskin, covering and uncovering the red and sensitive glans, he teased the slit with the tip of his forefinger until he was dripping, use the pre cum to make those caresses even more sensual, and lingered for a long time with his thumb on the frenulum, causing a shiver of pleasure to run through his whole body.

"Ah... aaahh! AH!" John threw his head back and shouted even louder, without any inhibition.

He planted his feet on the stone, raising his knees, and stroked the inside of his thighs before touching himself again, stretching a hand to play with his testicles, while the other pumped the shaft with increasingly fast and rough movements, and when he touched his perineum, the orgasm swept over him: John arched his back and continued to pump, until three consecutive spurts of cum soiled his chest and abdomen.

"Ah... wonderful..." John lay back on the boulder, giggling, light and satisfied. He waited a few minutes for his breath to calm down, he rinsed again in the torrent, picked up his clothes, stretched voluptuously and went back to the cabin, humming an old popular song with closed lips.

He couldn’t know that he had just given a show for a very interested onlooker.

As any other day, Sherlock had descended into the clearing to observe The Man; the faun loved to look at him when he undressed: he understood well that humans, being hairless, needed clothes to protect themselves from the cold and the insect bites, but Sherlock liked to look at him like that, naked, when he was completely himself, without veils or screens, with the crystalline water that slid over the tanned skin. The Man had a prominent scar on his left shoulder, behind which there was a story Sherlock wanted to know and hear from his voice.

After the bath, usually The Man dressed and went back to work, or rested in the cabin, but this time he lay in the sun, and then began to touch himself between the legs.

Of course Sherlock knew very well what he was doing, he wasn’t completely ignorant of the subject, and he also knew that he should leave, that it was different from spying him while he was working: it was an intimate and private moment and he really shouldn’t stay there to spy on him. 

Nevertheless, Sherlock found himself crawling through the grass, until he came close to The Man, dangerously close, so that he could spy the movements of his hand, the shivers that ran through his body, and his smiling and delighted face, as if The Man had cast a powerful spell on Sherlock that kept him nailed there.

His breathing quickened, his heart was beating so hard in his chest that Sherlock feared that The Man could hear it, and the sexual desire, usually non-existent in him, made itself known strong and overwhelming, so much that Sherlock reached out to the thick bush of hair that covered his groin and touched himself in turn. All he had to do was to touch himself a couple of times, imagining the hands of The Man doing that, and the world became white behind his closed eyes, and Sherlock crumpled to the ground, shattered by the pleasure and the reaction of his own body.

After a while, The Man got up and went back into the cabin, completely unaware of the presence of the faun curled up in the tall grass a few meters from him, dazed and almost feverish.

Suddenly the mating didn’t seem so disgusting to Sherlock.

Not with the right person.

 

September passed, the verdant meadows dried, the deciduous trees covered the woods with a red and brown mantle of dead leaves, and above larches took an intense yellow coloring before losing the needles; it came the season of nuts and late mushrooms and then that of chestnuts, that forced John to remember the gestures made by his mother when he and Harriet were children, and she made chestnut flour: now he regretted having dismissed kitchen duty as "a thing for women" and never having paid attention, because his first attempt of chestnut cake was so terrible that even the hens had difficulty eating it.

The first snow came early: it fell silent one night in mid-November on the mountain tops, stopping a few hundred meters above his cabin, and John decided to return one last time to Fort Barts before winter, because he had the feeling that soon he would be blocked by the snow.

This time, also Madonna Hudson, who usually had nothing to say about John living in the Forest, tried to persuade him to spend the winter at the village: maybe he could find a job that wasn’t too heavy, to keep his leg from straining.

"Damn my leg!" The former soldier growled, annoyed: when he was in the village everyone was doing their best to remind him of his disability, while, when he was up there, alone, he could almost forget it. "Forgive me," he added, when he realized he had been grumpy and rude to the old innkeeper, “but I assure you that I'll be fine."

"John, the winter up there is too harsh! Trust me: I've lived here all my life," the woman insisted, but John didn’t want to listen: he would have to spend months enduring commiseration, morbid curiosity and murmurs behind his back about how much a crippled war veteran was a burden on the community? No thanks, better the rigors of the snow-covered Forest.

When he left that morning, many people looked at him as if it were the last time they saw him alive. 

John thought that maybe they weren’t wrong, but deep down he didn’t care too much.

In any case, he had taken the right decision, anticipating his last descent to the valley, because, a week later, it snowed even more intensely in the clearing, and a frightful avalanche hit the path next to the waterfall, blocking John’s only route to the external world, and he found himself immersed in a reality made of noises muffled by the white and blinding blanket of snow, broken only by the few birds that hadn’t migrated to the south, and the dreary howl of the wolves.

It wasn’t easy, he would have lied saying the opposite: the hours of light had drastically reduced, in the rare sunny days the sun rose from the peaks to the east around ten in the morning, staying pale and low on the horizon, and around three o'clock in the afternoon it set behind the mountains to the west.

In the morning it was so dark that, at times, John was tempted not to get up at all, and was forced to leave the bed only for the strong blows that Rodrigo settled on the door of the barn, claiming the hay, or the shrill bleating of Betta, asking to be milked, but he was often assailed by the doubt that he wouldn’t survive the winter: it was too cold, too merciless, too immense for a single man. 

Yet, somehow, he was pulling forward day after day: he shoveled the snow down from the roof of the cabin so that it wouldn’t collapse under the excessive weight, he dug a path leading up to the woodshed on the back of the cabin and another to the tool shed, he collected wood despite the chilblains and his hands hurt from the cold, he cooked the salt meat, he ate the preserves, he washed and took care of himself, even if at times his life seemed useless and meaningless.

But he was still there, alive in spite of everything, like a dandelion seedling waiting patiently for spring under the snow. [2]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] A mule can have an imposing size, superior to that of a horse, and against a European brown bear (they’re little, if compared to North America bears), especially if young, can easily have the best.
> 
> [2] Dandelion is an extremely resistant plant and has a very long flowering that can go from March to November.


	7. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As if winter were not hard enough, John has an accident on the frozen torrent and almost dies. Sherlock can't remain indifferent and intervenes to save him.

Towards the end of December, a massive blizzard forced John into the cabin for three days.

He almost believed he was going crazy with nothing to do but walking in circles like a caged animal; anyway, in the end the sun shone again, in a sky so clear and limpid that it almost made his eyes water.

John lit the fire to warm up the cabin and got dressed to go out, because he had enough of preserved food, he had to stretch his legs and wanted to try to catch some trouts in the torrent, now that the water was almost completely frozen: by drilling a hole in the ice and attracting fishes with a fake fly (which he had made during those long days indoors) it wouldn’t have been too difficult to get lunch, because the fishes were hungry and would have bit the hook more easily.

He took the fishing rod and also the rifle, because that night he heard the wolves howling not too far from the cabin: the hunger had made them very audacious. Therefore he made sure that the barn door was bolted, he fastened the rudimentary snowshoes to his feet and set off.

Near the torrent, in a point that he knew has lot of fishes, a terrible scene appeared before his eyes: the old female roe deer that he had spared a few months before, had fallen under the assault of five wolves, who now pointed to her fawn, who cried terrified on a rock in the middle of the frozen torrent.

Life was like that, the laws of Nature were like that: ruthless and terrible, and John shouldn’t have intervened, but something snapped inside him, and he decided that he wouldn’t let die that helpless, frightened and trembling fawn. For once, only once in life, he wanted to do something good and meaningful for someone else, no matter how insignificant it was.

He raised his rifle, lit the fuse and fired a warning shot that attracted the attention of the wild beasts; three of them fled immediately, but two remained close to the carcass of the freshly killed animal, snarling, reluctant to abandon their prey. Without taking the eyes off them, John reloaded his weapon and fired a second shot, this time lower; hearing the lead ball whistling close to their ears, accompanied by the smell of gunpowder, even the other two wolves ran away.

John knelt next to the female: she was still warm, but there was nothing to do for her. The cries of her fawn was almost excruciating.

"I'm sorry," John said, wanting the animal to understand. "I wish I had done more."

The fawn was too scared to escape, but also too suspicious to get close to him: he jumped on a boulder farther away, without straying too far from his mother, and he continued to call her weakly.

John should do something to catch the fawn, and bring him into the barn, otherwise the wolves would have come back to finish their job, or he would have died of hunger.

"There, there..." he murmured reassuringly, and took a step on the ice; the fawn didn’t move, but blew from the nostrils and gave signs of nervousness.

"I don’t want to hurt you."

John took another step, and the little animal cried louder.

"No, no, stay..."

The ice creaked under John’s feet and broke with a crash.

In an instant, John fell into the icy water of the torrent, in a point so deep that he went completely underwater. 

The thermal shock was terrible, it was like being enveloped by the embrace of the death, that paralyzed his limbs with icy hands. John gasped, resurfaced, and tried to take a breath, but it was like if his rib cage was constrained by the cold, and the weight of soaked clothes dragged him underwater again.

His hands stretched upward, looking for the edge of the hole; they grabbed it, but the ice was too thin and shattered again, preventing him from rising to dryness. In a few seconds his body was already completely numb and soon he would no longer be able to fight the end.

_ "No! I don’t want to die! I want to live!"  _ He thought.

With a superhuman effort he pushed his legs hard and lifted himself against the edge of the hole, where the ice was thicker, he clawed, gasped and growled until he emerged completely from the icy water, but he wasn’t still safe. The gust of wind that hit him was even worse than the frozen water, it seemed that his limbs had turned into lead, and just taking a breath costed him an unspeakable effort.

He crawled away from the treacherous torrent, but getting back to his cabin seemed an impossible enterprise. His eyes closed, his legs didn’t cooperate, the torpor of hypothermia was assailing him, and yet, if he wanted to live, he had to reach his cabin at all costs: a few minutes more exposed to the icy air and he would have died frozen.

"No, I don’t want, I don’t want to die..." he mumbled again, before the eyelids dropped heavy on his eyes, and John thought that the end had come for him.

Yet, somehow, he managed to get up and walk away, at least so it seemed to him, because when he opened his eyes again, the trees slowly passed next to him, and the cabin was getting closer. It meant that he was walking, even if reality was strange and distorted, like in a dream: he didn’t even feel like his feet were on the ground, or his legs were moving; rather, he felt like he was floating in midair, and his chest, even through wet clothes, was leaning on something wide, warm and comforting.

He had another moment of blackout, and his eyes closed again, then he found himself inside the cabin, and the strange dreamlike feeling went on: a moment before he was imprisoned in his clothes, soaked with cold water, a moment later he was naked and wrapped in a dry linen sheet, though he didn’t remember having undressed and taking something from the chest.

He closed his eyes again, and his head fell heavily forward, but when he opened them, the fire in the fireplace burned much stronger than when he had gone out: when he had gone to retrieve other logs to burn from the woodshed?

The surroundings around him became even stranger, confused and fragmented, while the fever went up fast and violent: he found himself lying in bed under all the furs and blankets he had, but the cold had penetrated into his bones, no fire and no blankets seemed able to calm his shivers, and the sound of his teeth chattering was almost deafening.

Then, suddenly, he felt a pleasant warmth, similar to the one he felt against his chest a little earlier, but even more intense, a warmth that wrapped him completely in a wonderful caress, and finally his body stopped being shaken by uncontrollable tremors. That warm embrace was accompanied by a strong smell of wild animal and nature, a smell that John had already sniffed months ago, right there in that bed, but at that moment he was too exhausted to think clearly and wonder what it was.

The fever, however, showed no sign of decreasing, and his body started to be shaken by tremendous coughs, while the room swirled around him, because of fever and vertigo. In his delirium, John heard a deep voice with a strange accent that repeated constantly _ "resist, resist," _ in his ear, encouraging him not to give up.

A hallucination, of course, because he was alone.

Or maybe not?

At one point he had even got up and made a tisane of herbs against the fever, because he was swallowing a very hot and invigorating infusion, and then something balsamic, smelling of mountain pine and resin, was smeared on his chest, calming the cough.

The warm embrace enveloped him again, and John closed his eyes, sleeping like a stone until the next morning.

John was woken up by something fresh and wet resting on the forehead, a feeling that caused a ticklish sensation and made him open his eyes: he had the fleeting vision of a strange and beautiful creature, almost human, if it hadn’t been for two long deer ears, raised in an alarmed position, two gray eyes of unearthly beauty, and a small, dark, deer nose.

John smiled and raised a hand to touch that face, but then he thought that he was still dreaming, that there couldn’t exist someone so wonderful and pure in this world, so he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

 

Sherlock came out of the cabin as quietly as possible, and slumped against the closed door, upset: even if he was delirious, The Man had seen him, and had smiled. His face was tired and marked by the bad experience, but his eyes were the most beautiful thing Sherlock had ever seen, they had the deep blue shades of Alpine lakes.

It was the first time that he took care of someone, but when, from a distance, he had seen The Man fall into the ice, he had made an immediate decision, without hesitating even for a moment, and had run towards him, ready to show himself to save him.

When The Man had fainted, Sherlock had carried him on his back, and brought him into the cabin, freeing him from his wet clothes and warming him up with his own body, so that he wouldn’t freeze.

Fortunately, the human knew a lot about medicinal herbs, because in the different jars on the sideboard, Sherlock found everything needed to prepare a tisane that would lower the fever, and a balsamic ointment to calm the cough.

Sherlock had stayed up all night long, hugging him, controlling his temperature and his breathing: luckily, the body of The Man was strong, and with a little rest he would recover without consequences.

For him it was time to leave, because the more The Man regained lucidity, the more there was the risk of being discovered.

Sherlock got up, hearing noises coming from the barn and entered it: The Man's goat had willingly accepted to take care of the orphaned fawn, but now Sherlock explained her in the ancient language of the Custodians, which all the animals understood, that he would bring him among other deers, then he threw some hay and grains to the animals.

The fawn leaned his snout on the door that divided the barn from the cabin, and cried very softly: he was sad because the human had fallen into the torrent in an attempt to save him.

"I'm sure The Man isn’t angry with you, he's good." 

He opened the door of the barn and let him out.

From a distant peak, a wolf howled threateningly.

"Stay close to me," said Sherlock to the fawn, "we have to hurry up."

In a herd of roe deers that were wintering in the woods, a female had recently lost her fawn because of the lack of food, and when the little orphan approached her, she didn’t reject him.

Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief and smiled: The Man had risked his life to save the fawn and he was happy that his efforts weren’t in vain.

"The wolves will descend in the evening from the northern path, you should move elsewhere," Sherlock told to the leader before hopping away.

 

As he returned to the valley of Yggdrasil, Sherlock stopped for a last time to look at the cabin of The Man, then proudly raised his clear eyes to the sky, talking with the Spirit of the Forest.

"It was a test, right? For him or for me or maybe for both... anyway I'm sure I made the right decision."

His return to the community of Custodians caused great scandal and indignation: the cold was too intense even for him, so he couldn’t bath in the torrent and roll in the dust to hide the smell of the human, that was stronger than ever on him.

Even Molly, who never stopped walking around him, drew back in dismay as he passed, and the murmur of disapproval of the other fauns followed Sherlock to his cave.

"He smells like human."

"That's disgusting."

"He contaminate this sacred place."

"And watch him! He doesn’t care, he's not ashamed of it."

"And what should I be ashamed of, exactly?” Sherlock challenged them, turning around, “To have saved a life?”

The voices fell silent, but the looks of disapproval remained unchanged, yet Sherlock endured them without wavering, until everyone was gone. Obviously, the calm didn’t last long, because his brother immediately reached him in his cave.

"This time you passed the sign."

"Yes, I acted like a barbarian," Sherlock said sarcastically, crossing his arms to his chest, ready to defend his decision.

"We Custodians don’t interfere with the world of humans, you had to leave that man to his destiny."

"You can do whatever you want, and I do the same."

"Didn’t occur to you that maybe that was the will of the Forest? That It had he decided to kill him at last?"

"No," said Sherlock, resolutely, surprising Mycroft. "I think the Forest wanted to test him, and he passed it."

"Only with your help."

"Once upon a time, it was like that between Custodians and humans."

"Those are past times that will never come back."

"Yeah, especially if someone does everything he can to avoid for them to come back."

"You are young and impulsive and there are many things you think you know, but you're wrong."

"I know that the words engraved on the monolith in the clearing are still valid, I know that the Forest had countless occasions to kill that human, and yet it didn’t, I know that the Forest has kept intact the cabin in the clearing."

"To remember us who our enemies are."

"Or perhaps to encourage us to reconcile with them."

"The reality will change your mind, brother."

"We'll see."

Mycroft shook his head, almost dejected: over the years there had been many clashes between him and Sherlock, or between Sherlock and some other member of the community, but his brother had never been so stubborn. This time it was different, and, unfortunately, the Supreme Custodian feared he knew why.

 

The fever dropped, and John's thoughts became clearer, though he still didn’t remember exactly how he had managed to return to the cabin alone: his clothes were lying to dry near the still lit fireplace, in a tin pot there was the surplus of the tisane he drunk, in the mortar there was the mountain pine ointment against the cough, the animals had received their dose of hay, and even the day on the calendar had been turned.

Was it possible that he had done all those things, and had forgotten about them because of the fever? It seemed very unlikely, he had been too weak and feverish to move.

And then, there was the nebulous vision of that creature that didn’t leave his mind: the day before, because of the shock of hypothermia, everything had seemed unreal and confused, but reasoning about it, the presence of that creature was the only logical explanation of how he had managed to return to the cabin.

As soon as he felt stronger, he decided to go back to the torrent where he had risked drowning, to retrieve the fishing rod and the rifle he had left there: he fastened his snowshoes to his feet and his right hand stretched automatically towards where he usually kept his crutch.

That was not there.

Only then, he realized that he had moved around the cabin without needing it.

Incredulous, he got up and walked to the fireplace, then back to the bench, where he let himself fall with a startled smile: he wasn’t limping, he was healed.

He walked in the snow, enjoying the freedom to walk without having to rely on the crutch and, having reached the torrent, picked up his things.

The hole where he had fallen was already covering in a new layer of ice, and within a few days it would have been as if nothing had ever happened.

But it had happened, and John couldn’t ignore it: in that place, a small round hole on this great earth, John had almost die, he had felt the flattery of the eternal sleep calling him, he had the opportunity to leave in silence, as sometimes he had thought of doing after being wounded in the war, but he hadn’t surrender.

Something deep inside him was terrified at the idea of dying, so he had shouted and rebelled, struggled to re-emerge from the icy water, and had clung to life with all his strength. He had discovered that, in the depths of his soul, he didn’t want to die: he hadn’t come to such a remote place to meet a solitary end, but to rediscover the desire to live, the same desire that had made him cultivate the land, take care of the animals, accumulate supplies and cut wood.

And the Forest had repaid him by letting him live and healing him from that mysterious limp, and John was grateful to it for this, so he said a silent but heartfelt prayer to thank the Forest.

Speaking of life, who knows what had happened to the fawn? 

John didn’t have high hopes that he was still alive: the remains of his mother's carcass, devoured by wolves, still lay in the snow, but he didn’t see any smaller bones that made him think about a fawn.

Then, near the point where he had dragged himself out of the water, he saw two sets of hoofprints, the first was very small (surely those of the fawn), the second was larger, and both pointed in the direction of his little cabin, but while the little ones they were those of a quadruped, the second series was from a biped, albeit with ungulate feet: traces didn’t lie, and he could read them well.

Only that there was no such animal in the world, that he knew.

And, even more surprisingly, there was no sign of his snowshoes.

So he hadn’t dreamed: someone had really picked him up off the ground, brought home, and saved from death, and it could only be that beautiful creature he had glimpsed when he opened his eyes.

"Thank you!” John shouted, looking around. “Whoever you are, thank you for saving my life! You have been watching me for a long time, isn’t it? I... I'd like to see you, I'd like to talk to you. I promise you that I will not be frightened, and I promise you that you must not be afraid of me, even if I certainly look strange and frightful to you. I... really... I just want to see you and thank you in person."

Then, as he was still weak because of fever, and he was starting to feel cold, he returned to his cabin.

 

Crouched behind some rocks on the other side of the torrent, Sherlock had to resort to all his willpower not to stand up and show himself to him: The Man shared his own desire to meet him and know him, and he used again that mysterious word, thank you. The Custodian ignored the meaning of it, but, somehow, it sounded warm and sweet to his ears.

The soul of that human was the opposite of everything the Custodians had always told him about them, but could he trust The Man to the point of revealing the existence of his people? What if he was just pretending, using those lying skills for which humans were so hated and feared?

Still uncertain and full of doubts, he didn’t move until The Man came back into the cabin, then raised his face to the sky and sniffed the air: unfortunately he had to return to the garden of Yggdrasil, because another snowstorm was coming, and it was bad one.

He couldn’t be stuck in the woods during the storm, but he moved away from the clearing very reluctantly.


	8. 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After many months, finally Sherlock and John meet in person!

Sherlock chewed listlessly a fruit of Yggdrasil inside his cave, while outside the wind howled and carried whirls of snow.

Irene was there with him: over time Sherlock had reconciled with her, especially because the female Custodian seemed to have given up on him.

She was leaning against one of the magical crystals that were inside their caves and that oozed a pleasant warmth, and now she was talking about something, but Sherlock's mind was elsewhere.

It had been two days since he had come down to the clearing, because of the storm that was raging, and the smell of The Man didn’t reach Yggdrasil’s garden: was he all right? When he left, The Man was still weak... what if he felt sick and had a relapse?

"Since that man aroused your interest, sometimes I went to see him too," said Irene, looking at Sherlock, "and I really can’t understand why you find him so special. As Mycroft says, it's only a human."

Once again, Sherlock didn’t hear her, his face resting on his crossed arms, his gaze fixed on the entrance of the cave. He noticed Irene only when the Custodian got up to leave, and frowned.

"Where are you going?"

"I go back to my cave, I don’t want to waste my breath on deaf ears. Anyway, you and that man are a fine couple."

"Don’t talk nonsense, we've never even talked," Sherlock muttered, in a voice full of regret.

"But you stare in the void, lost in your minds, in same way, one might think you're made for each other," Irene said. "I should be jealous of him, but it would be a waste of my time on my part, wouldn’t it? You have already decided."

"What if I've done it?" Sherlock whispered, giving voice to that thought for the first time.

"A real waste,” the Custodian tried to joke, then she was serious again. “Well, in the end it’s your life, Sherlock, you've always done as you wanted, it will not be me or someone else to make you change your mind," she concluded, almost a half blessing on her part.

Once he was alone, Sherlock's anxiety grew stronger: he told himself that he had to make sure that The Man was fine, and that he didn’t strain himself too much, after all he was still convalescing. But, inside himself, he knew that he could no longer stay too long without seeing him.

He slipped out of his cave, taking advantage of the heavy snowfall: all the Custodians were in their caves, and he could go away undisturbed. But, as soon as he reached the edge of the garden, a voice stopped him.

"I wouldn’t do it, if I were you," warned Gregory, who was watching him, foreseeing Sherlock’s move.

"But you're not me, you're just my brother's spy... among other things."

The older Custodian ignored the insinuation and sighed: "If you stopped for a moment to have such a hostile attitude, you would realize that we do it only for your own good."

"It's a topic I've already dealt with Mycroft so many times that I feel nauseous about it, and you know how much I hate to repeat myself. Don’t worry, it's not the first time I go out during a snowfall."

"That's not why you should stay here."

"Oh,” Sherlock narrowed his eyes, “the wolves."

"Yes. The wolves didn’t like that the human took the fawn of the roe deer, it was their prey."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

"They are doing a drama for nothing, that fawn is more hooves and fur than flesh, it wouldn’t have fed anyone."

"But more than anything,” Gregory continued, “they didn’t like your intrusion: taking that little fawn to another herd, you have infringed the laws of the Forest, that say that the weakest specimens are destined to die.”

"The wolves invoke the laws only when it’s convenient to them, but they break them whenever they feel like it. The Man took pity on that fawn, and I would never allow his mercy to be wasted."

"Sherlock, we are the Custodians, our task is to protect the Forest and to respect its will, this is what has allowed this place to survive intact over time; if you start to ignore this fact and behave like that stranger, insisting on writing your own rules, the animals will not trust us anymore, and it will be chaos."

"Are you done?"

"You’ll stay here until the waters have calmed down and the wolves have forgotten the incident, otherwise I will have to take action."

Gregory's gaze ran to the Portal, more to intimidate the other Custodian than for real will to use it.

"Okay." Sherlock sighed resignedly and went back, but when Gregory went to check his cave, he found it empty: somehow Sherlock had managed to slip away unnoticed.

"It was too good to be true,” sighed the gray fawn, irritated. “Mycroft will kill me first, and then him."

 

Sherlock struggled in the soft, high snow, that hadn’t yet had time to harden: despite being thin and agile, he found himself sunk down in the snow to the waist every two or three steps, to his utmost disappointment. 

He noticed the first wolves as soon as he came down from the cliff that led to the little valley where the Custodian lived: two young males, who looked at him from afar and growled their anger.

Sherlock ignored them: it was unusual for wolves to come out during a snowfall, risking to freeze to death only to show off, but some of them were really stupid. He didn’t care about them, but as he descended towards the clearing, the situation became worse for him: three other wolves joined the first two, howling threatening and approaching him. 

Initially, Sherlock was convinced that they wouldn’t attack him, because the old wolves of the pack would never allow a Custodian to be hurt by them, but those five thugs didn’t seem to care. Perhaps they had even been chased away from their pack, due to their aggressive attitude, and now they didn’t respond to any authority.

This wasn’t a good outlook for Sherlock, at all.

The wolves were bolder and bolder, and they were surrounding him with a perfect maneuver: two behind him to close the escape route to Yggdrasil’s garden, where they would have never dared to venture, and two on the sides to push him forward, where the fifth was waiting to attack him frontally.

_ "Well," _ Sherlock thought,  _ "let's try and mess up their plans." _

The wolf that was approaching him from the right, was less agile and fast than his mates: judging by his gait, he had an old wound to his left hind leg, healed badly. 

Sherlock would have thrown himself in that direction, that was also the shortest way to the clearing, even if the most impervious, but he could rely on his agility. 

He suddenly jumped, hopping as fast as possible so as not to sink in the snow, and threw himself into the thick trees, protecting his face from the low branches with one arm in front of his eyes. 

He had to decide instantly the best trajectory and, at the same time, to force the wolves to run as long as possible, because he was alone, while the wolves had the strength of their number, but if they got tired, they would abandon the pursuit so as not to waste their energy in vain. 

It was all going well, Sherlock was almost at the end of the slope that led to the clearing, when he put a paw on a dwarf mountain pine completely covered with snow: he sank and wriggled, while his pursuers got closer; suddenly he felt a pang of pain in his right thigh, where a dead branch of the bush had pierced him.

He didn’t have time to assess how bad the wound was, but when he tried to jump away from the bush, the pain was so strong that he fell back into the snow.

Now the wolves were on him and his pace was too slow to escape them.

The leader of the small pack stepped in front of him, growling triumphantly; he flexed his hind legs and jumped towards him with his jaws wide open, but suddenly a sharp snap was heard, the parabola of the wolf stopped in mid-air and the animal landed to his side, remaining motionless on the ground, dead, while the acrid smell of gunpowder spread in the air.

Sherlock slowly turned his head to the left and found himself in front of The Man, with the rifle still lifted, the breath condensing in front of his mouth in small clouds of steam, and a relentless expression on his face.

"Do you want to try again?” he shouted in the direction of a wolf who had taken a step towards Sherlock, while reloading the weapon. “I'm ready."

The wolves certainly didn’t understand his words, but the fierce tone of The Man’s voice, and the sight of his dead comrade led them to retreat, and in a moment they disappeared into the woods.

John turned his attention to the faun, and his expression quickly changed from anger to utter amazement as he collapsed on his knees in the snow. "My God,” he murmured, “you exist... you exist for real."

Sherlock was panicking: everything had happened too fast, he wasn’t ready to meet The Man, not like that; he didn’t know what to say, what to do, he couldn’t think, so he tried to run away, but the leg didn’t support him.

"No, no, don’t run away, you're hurt."

The Man put the rifle over his shoulder and approached him slowly, with his hands raised.

"I just want to help you. Do you understand what I say?"

Sherlock nodded slowly and John sighed in relief.

"You're losing a lot of blood and I would like to take you to my house, to the cabin, to cure you, if you allow me," he explained with a sweet smile on his lips, his voice calm and reassuring, so different from the one he used against the wolves. 

Sherlock tried to stand up again, but John stopped him, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder.

"No, you don’t have to strain your injured leg."

"But…"

"Let me help you, please."

The Custodian felt helpless in front of him, but among the many emotions he was feeling, there was no fear, so he nodded again, and John held him up in his arms, staggering visibly.

"Sorry,” he chuckled, embarrassed. “But... you're heavier than you look."

John took a few uncertain steps in the snow, sinking because of the weight of both. Despite the snowshoes, he continued to sway because of the unbalanced barycentre: the creature had curled up tightly on himself, with the head hidden under his arms, and was making it difficult for John to carry him.

The Custodian had dreamed so many times the moment of their first meeting, he had fantasized for days about what they would say, but he never imagined it would happen like that.

Standing in the arms of The Man, surrounded by his strong smell, amplified terribly all the feelings that Sherlock felt when he thought of him: he felt protected and safe, but at the same time vulnerable and exposed, happy and anxious in equal measure, eager to looking back at The Man’s eyes, blue like alpine lakes, but too embarrassed to lift his head.

He had never experienced anything like this in his life.

"Could you put your arms around my neck?” John asked, panting. “It would be easier for me to transport you."

Without ever looking him in the face, Sherlock lifted his arms and clung to the shoulders of The Man, sinking his face into the bear fur he wore, and started when he felt The Man’s chin resting on his dark curls.

"Much better. Hold on, we're almost there."

Once in the cabin, John laid the faun on the table and revived the fire, then took a few moments to watch that incredible creature: he wasn’t human, but had the most beautiful and expressive face he had ever seen.

It was different, yet so similar to him.

Sherlock felt embarrassed under the look of The Man, because he was looking at him as if he were a deity, but he was not, and above all, he didn’t want to be looked at like that by The Man.

He wanted them to be on the same level. Equal, despite the differences between them.

"Do you have a name?"

"Sherlock," said a surprisingly deep voice.

"Nice to meet you, Sherlock, my name is John."

"Joo-John..." Sherlock repeated, trying that alien name on his tongue. He liked it.

"Yes."

"John, you're not scared of me," Sherlock said, timidly: the humans of the village and the rare hunters who ventured into the lower part of the Forest were terrified of them, though they had never seen them, while John hadn’t shown any sign of fear.

"Neither you are," John replied, drawing a chair near the table.

"No."

"Good."

"Good," Sherlock repeated, while John examined the wound.

"It's a bad cut, rather deep: I have to disinfect and treat it, otherwise it will get worse, do you understand me?"

If he were in the garden of the Valley of the Custodians, Sherlock could eat one of Yggdrasil Fruit of Healing to be better, but here he could rely only on The Man... on John. His name was John, he reminded himself.

And Sherlock found that he trusted John as he trusted Yggdrasil, so he nodded firmly.

"Don’t move." 

John stood up and retrieved small ampoules from the sideboard, along with a leather case.

"This will burn a lot," he said, lifting one of the ampoules containing a clear liquid, "but it will prevent the wound from getting infected." He was determined to explain step by step everything he would do, to prove to Sherlock that he could trust him.

"What's it?"

"Alcohol mixed with mint, rosemary and lavender."

John opened the ampoule and the intense smell made Sherlock jump back: he was almost intoxicating by the smell, that left him stunned.

"I'm sorry, I guess it's very strong for your sense of smell, but I promise you it will make you feel better. Can I proceed?"

"Yes."

"Now you have to stay as still as you can, Sherlock."

John dipped the corner of a piece of clean linen with alcohol and passed it several times over the wound, blowing gently to soften the burning; with the light of a candle he checked that there were no wood chips in the wound, then took a some ointment from the second ampoule and spread it along the edges of the cut. 

"This is a stramonium ointment, it will make the wound numb for a while. An old friend of mine used it before sewing the soldiers, so they would feel less pain." [1]

"What's a sol-soldier?" Asked Sherlock, who had never heard that word: his vocabulary of the human language was still narrow, unfortunately.

"It’s a person who fights the war and kills other soldiers because someone tells him to do it." John found no better explanation to give him, and then, in light of the new life he led into the Forest, the old one was as absurd as he had just described.

"Oh." Sherlock's ears bent downward, as if he were disappointed.

Who knows what he had imagined in his head, thought John. "I know, we humans are exceedingly stupid."

"Ex..."

"Exceedingly. It means too much."

"Exceedingly," Sherlock repeated firmly, memorizing the word, and John smiled, amused by his curiosity.

John tasted the wound, and since Sherlock showed no signs of discomfort, the anesthetic must have took effect.

He took needle and thread, and lifted them in front of the faun's face. "I have to sew the wound,” he mimicked the gesture he would have done on him, “otherwise it will continue to bleed. I've done it many times before and you can trust me, but if it scares you, you don’t have to look."

Sherlock nodded his consent, but didn’t turn around; instead he followed what John was doing with great interest: so that was the way humans treated their wounds. Definitely impractical compared to the fruits of Yggdrasil, but ingenious in its own way.

John worked silently with a steady and fast hand, and finally he wrapped the Custodian's leg with the linen cloth.

"It's late," John observed, looking at the dark sky beyond the windows, "and you shouldn’t strain your leg, you can stay here and rest, for tonight."

"Yes, all right."

Sherlock climbed down from the table and limped in front of the fire, where he crouched: it wasn’t as hot as the magic crystals in his cave, but it was all right.

He and John stood looking at each other, in silence, and inside them, they both felt very stupid: they had finally met after months, during which Sherlock had watched John from afar, and John had imagined that there was someone there; they had so much to say and to ask, but they didn’t know where to start.

It was John who broke the silence. "Are you hungry?” He frowned, “but I don’t know if I have something you like, I have no idea what you eat.”

"Grass, fruit and mushrooms. Usually a Yggdrasil fruit is enough for me. I don’t eat much."

His voice had a strange and exotic accent and his sentences were short and broken, as if pronouncing them cost him a great mental effort.

"You speak my language well."

"No, it’s not true. Why do you lie?"

"I'm not lying to you, I really think so: you speak it very well for not being human."

"My pronunciation is full of flaws and I don’t know many words, because I have never been able to train and talk to any of you humans."

"So where did you learn?"

"On some books, and listening to the hunters who occasionally enter the Forest. Down below, near the village."

"Oh, do you have books?"

Sherlock scratched behind his ear with his healthy hind paw. "They're not mine. They belonged to the anchorite. But he doesn’t use them anymore. "

"Why?"

"Because he’s dead."

John remembered hearing Madonna Hudson talking about an anchorite who moved to the Forest years ago, to live a contemplative life in solitude: he must be the same person.

"His body is still here in the Forest," Sherlock continued. "Even the books. When the snow melts, I can take you to see where he is."

"All right. So he taught you to talk, the anchorite?"

"No. He was already dead when I got the books."

"Do you mean you learned everything by yourself?"

"Yes."

"Sherlock, it's extraordinary!" John exclaimed, admiringly.

"Do you really think so?" The Custodian asked. Actually, the human language was very simple, compared to that of the Custodians, and learning it hadn’t required enormous efforts, but he decided to keep it for himself, hoping that John would pay him another compliment.

"Of course it's extraordinary: I wouldn’t know where to start studying a foreign language without the help of anyone, just listening to people talking and reading in books. You've been incredible. 

Sherlock turned his head to the flames, terribly flattered by John's words.

"That's not what the other Custodians say."

"Custodians?"

"My people."

"And what do they say?"

"That everything concerning humans is bad and a useless waste of time."

"Do you think it is, too?"

Sherlock shook his head and looked back at John.

"I am pleased to hear it."

The former soldier rose from his chair, put away the tools with which he had treated Sherlock's wound, then took two plates, knives, and a pan, and sat down on the floor near the fireplace, in front of Sherlock. 

"Do you want to try it? It is a chestnut pie with candied fruit and honey. My mother did it better, but after several attempts, I can say that mine is not bad either."

The Custodian nodded, then John cut a slice, put it on the plate and handed it to Sherlock, then took a knife with which the Custodian could cut it into chunks, pierce it and eat it, but Sherlock had already taken with his hands and he was eating with gusto. [2]

"What is it?" The faun asked, pointing to the knife.

"A knife: it’s used to cut food and eat it."

"Why? Do your hands have problems?"

John laughed and pulled a piece of pie with his fingers. "No, I guess not."

They finished eating in silence, then John spoke again. "You've been watching me for a while, aren’t you? Sometimes I felt there was someone here, with me."

Sherlock's face took on an alarmed expression: between the Custodians it wasn’t good to spy, and probably it was the same for humans, but John hastened to reassure him: "I'm not angry. Sometimes the thought of not being completely alone has been comforting."

Sherlock smiled: he was happy to have helped him to fight solitude, even if in a completely anonymous way.

"This cabin," John went on, "I took possession of it without thinking too much, but maybe it belongs to someone?"

"Not anymore. Once, men like you lived here."

"Once?"

"Many moons ago."

"Lot of men, right?"

"Yes."

"I supposed. I saw the ruins of other cabins in the clearing and I imagined that there was a village here."

"They were too close to the torrent and a flood destroyed them. But this one remained intact, because that is what the Forest wanted."

"Where did the men go?"

"Died or driven out by the Forest and my people."

"Why?"

"There was a war between our peoples, because..." Sherlock hesitated and shut his mouth: that Forest, especially the Yggdrasil’s garden, guarded gold and other precious metals, gems and stones with magical powers, all things that made the men greedy, and had turned them against the Forest and the Custodian to seize it. Could he trust to tell John?

"Well," John sighed, "I suppose there were good reasons to fight us: sooner or later you always pay the price for your actions, and we humans always end up doing extremely stupid things."

"Like the war?"

"Like the war."

"John is not stupid."

"I was, Sherlock."

"But you aren’t anymore,” the Custodian replied vehemently. “You take care of your animals, you don’t kill if you don’t need to eat or protect yourself, you saved the fawn. You saved me."

"And you saved me: it was you who brought me home and cured me after I fell into the torrent, right?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"Thank you," Sherlock repeated, tilting his head to one side. "You often say this word: what does it mean?"

"It means…” John gasped for the right words, “that I'm grateful for what you did for me."

"Grateful?" The curly head inclined even more.

"Happy, but it's not exactly like that. Did I make myself clear?"

"Um..."

"Ah! Abstract concepts are difficult to explain. Wait,” John had an idea: he approached the Custodian and hugged him, stroking his back. “There: thank you."

It was like when John had picked him up from the snow to take him to the cabin, but even sweeter, and this caused the usual alarming eruption of conflicting feelings within Sherlock. Something had to come out on his face, because John became serious, perhaps fearing he had done something wrong or inappropriate.

"Do you understand now?"

"I think so."

"And how do you express a thank you among your people?" John asked, trying to put him at ease.

"Like that."

Sherlock leaned forward and licked his cheek and ear, and it was John's turn to be embarrassed and blush in front of so much audacity, rare even among lovers, but he immediately scolded himself harshly: Sherlock's gesture was perfectly innocent, it was wrong to read something else in it.

However, the Custodian misinterpreted his distress and withdrew hesitantly. 

"Not good?"

"No, no,” John reassured him. “I was just surprised, that's all: we don’t lick people we've just met."

"The world of the humans and the one of the Custodians are different," Sherlock murmured with a hint of sadness in his voice.

"The gestures may be different,” John reassured him by taking his hand, “but the feelings are the same, so thank you for saving my life."

Sherlock shook his head vigorously and his dark curls bounced almost comically. "It's not like that, John: you saved yourself, because you wanted it. My brother Mycroft says you came here to die, but I know it's not like that."

"No, not anymore."

"I’m so glad." Sherlock's face lit up with a smile so beautiful, that John was almost moved to tears: to know that someone was happy just because he was alive, that someone cared about him so much, warmed his heart, that heart hardened by years of wars, horrors and disappointments.

"Thank you," he repeated, clearing his throat and hugging him, "thank you."

Sherlock didn’t understand why John was thanking him again, and generally he didn’t like repetitive people, but for John he made an exception: he rested his chin on his shoulder, closed his eyes sighing with contentment and let himself be lulled by that gesture of affection.

"Ah!” John exclaimed, “Can I ask you what happened to the fawn that I saved from the wolves?"

"He's fine: I took him to another herd where he was adopted by another female."

"I'm happy, it's a relief."

"But I can’t guarantee he will get through the winter," Sherlock murmured.

"I know, but we gave him a chance to do it."

"We?"

"I saved him, of course, but you brought him to safety: we both did something for him."

Sherlock brought his knees to his chest and leaned his head on them, smiling: it was nice to think that he and John had done something together, it was as if they had a bond now.

"Come," said John after a while, "let's go to sleep. It was a busy day and you need to rest."

John climbed to the mezzanine and lay down on one side with his back against the wall, trying to make as much space as possible for Sherlock.

"It's narrow, but there should be enough space for both of us."

"Of course there is,” Sherlock replied innocently and wrapped himself around John as he had done when he was sick, resting his head on his chest, “there: we are warm and comfortable."

"Er..." John murmured, visibly embarrassed.

"Don’t humans do it to keep yourselves warm?" Asked Sherlock, genuinely curious.

"Like licking, we only do it with people we know well, like relatives."

He avoided talking about  _ 'spouses' _ because he thought that for Sherlock the concept of marriage was too alien to comprehend.

"Re... relatives?"

"You said you have a brother, that's it: a brother is a relative of you."

"But I don’t understand,” Sherlock frowned, confused, “the relationship that humans have with other humans change their perception of the cold?"

The question, so sweet and naive, amused and moved John. "No."

"So why don’t you sleep close together, especially in winter?"

"I said it, Sherlock: we humans are stupid."

Sherlock reflected on the new information he had learned, and John let him do it without bothering him; he put his arm on the Custodian's back, caressing it slowly, and closed his eyes. And he was right: close to each other, he slept much better.

 

The next morning John checked the wound, which hadn’t infected, made a new dressing and changed the bandage.

"Here you are," he said, wiping his hands in a rag. "You're okay."

Sherlock climbed down from the table and walked around the room: his leg was still a little sore, but he could move without problems, so he had no more reasons to stay there; he looked at John and saw the same thoughts reflected in his sad face.

"I guess you have to go back to your people: they will be worried."

"Yes, but not for the reasons you believe."

"Huh?"

"My brother wants to control my every move and tell me how to live my life, and the others want me to never come here again."

These Custodians, from what Sherlock had said, were very wary of humans, and Sherlock himself seemed reluctant to tell him something about his people.

How to blame them, after all?

Along the years, John had seen the worst of human nature, and had no doubt that in a distant past humans had done terrible things to be driven out of the Forest. And if the existence of those wonderful creatures had been made known to the outside world, surely armies of men would have poured there, to plunder what they could take, destroy the rest and kill everything they didn’t understand and went against their belief.

He had already seen it happen countless times.

Sherlock would have been much safer with his people than with him, and it would have been wiser if they didn’t see one other. 

John didn’t want to bribe him or put him in trouble with the other Custodians, but his company had been so pleasant that, for the first time since he lived there, the loneliness and silence of the Forest scared him, and when the Custodian was already on the door, he called him back.

"Are you sure you can go back home safe, Sherlock? Wolves could come back."

"No, your rifle scared them enough."

"Sherlock?"

"Yes?"

John ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I don’t want to create problems to you, nor I want you to be scolded or blamed because of me, but if you can, and especially if you want, I'd like you to come see me tomorrow, so I'll check your wound again, and then we could talk, or I could show you how some tools I use for work. You're curious about them, aren’t you?"

Now many oddities he had noticed the first days he had arrived in the clearing had an explanation: surely it was Sherlock who had tried the tools John had found in the nearby cave, keeping them in good condition over time.

Sherlock jumped on him, his ears and tail quivering with excitement and his eyes wide open.

"Would you do it?"

"Yes, of course," John laughed.

Sherlock licked his face eagerly, then exclaimed "thank you!" loudly and hopped away, waving a hand in his direction.

John looked at him until it was just an indistinct little dot in the snow and then closed the door, touching his face where Sherlock had licked him: what an extraordinary creature.

_ "Extraordinary and innocent, you must not forget it,"  _ he reminded himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The stramonium is a plant of the Solanaceae family and is toxic, but in small quantities it was used in the past as a local anesthetic, because it inhibited the spasms and attenuated the sensation of pain.
> 
> [2] I didn’t mention the fork because its use on the table is fairly recent, it dates back to the late XVIII century, previously it was considered an extravagant tool when not demonic (due to its shape that reminds the pitchfork of the devil), used only by nobles on special occasions.
> 
> *
> 
> Chained-to-the-mirror drew a sweet and lovely art for this chapter, you can find it [here](https://chained-to-the-mirror.tumblr.com/post/177835242201/heres-another-commission-for). Go and give them love!


	9. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock moves into John's cabin almost immediately, and they begin to know each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting ♥  
> As promised, now updates will resume regularly.

Once the Custodian left, the cabin seemed much larger and empty, and also desolately cold; John sighed, trying to throw the melancholy behind his back, and devoted himself to his everyday tasks: he fed the animals, cleaned the barn, milked Betta and picked up the eggs. Rodrigo brayed impatiently when he saw him and kicked the door of his little box.

"No, I will not let you out today: the snow is still too high."

Normally he tried to keep a small clean yard in front of the barn, where the animals could stretch their legs, but after the last snowfall it was unthinkable to do it in one day, it took more time.

After having took care of the animals, he went around the cabin to retrieve a bundle of wood and, turning around, he found himself face to face with another faun, bigger than Sherlock, with a silver fur and large antlers over his head.

Surprised, John let the wood fall, stumbled on his own feet and ended up sitting on the ground, while the creature stared at him with amazement mixed with pity.

"It’s not the first time that your eyes rest on a Custodian, so what is the reason for your fright, human?"

"You took me by surprise, I didn’t hear you coming."

"Oh? In that case I beg your pardon, I thought I had made enough noise."

"Not for me."

The Custodian's amazement still grew. "Do all men have such a weak hearing?"

"I think so."

"Curious."

"Yes, I guess we must look funny to you."

"It's not the word I would use to describe you," Gregory said gravely, suggesting that this wasn’t a courtesy visit.

"I guess this, too: Sherlock explained to me that you are very wary of my people."

"Can you blame us?"

"No, really."

"Curious, too, in a way." 

Gregory had expected a fierce and angry plea for defense of human beings from that man, but he seemed almost reasonable.

"Uh... you speak my language much better than Sherlock," John observed, changing the subject. If it hadn’t been for the peculiar features of the creature in front of him, John would have had the impression of talking to another human being, given his perfect diction and the absence of any accent.

"It’s thank to the Fruit of Knowledge of Yggdrasil, the Great Tree of Life. You eat it and it allows you to instantly learn everything you need to learn."

"Whoa!” exclaimed John, stunned. “But Sherlock didn’t do it: he told me that he had learned my language in another way."

The man he didn’t go into details, because he didn’t know if the Custodians knew of the books Sherlock had read: since the books belonged to the human world, perhaps, because of the laws of the Custodians, they were something forbidden or unseemly, or something like that. 

However, within himself, he felt even more admiration for Sherlock, at the idea that the young faun had the opportunity to use a convenient shortcut to learn what he wanted, but decided not to use it.

"No, he prefers to always do things in his own way," sighed the Custodian, as if the topic  _ 'Sherlock' _ was for him a perennial source of headache and stomach ache. "Sherlock has a endless intelligence, even for a Custodian, but he is a rebel."

"I understood that too," John said with a smile, then stood up, shaking the snow from his trousers. "I'm John."

"Gregory,"

"Tell me Gregory, can I do something for you?"

"What did Sherlock tell you about us?"

Of course: Sherlock could be a rebel, a sort of pariah among his people, but the other Custodians, like Gregory, were probably very concerned by the presence of a human in that place, now more than ever, since Sherlock had shown himself to him. Surely they wanted to investigate and know his intentions.

Hoping not to put Sherlock into trouble, he decided to be honest with Gregory, to make a good impression, and because he suspected that the Custodians didn’t like the lies of human beings at all.

"He told me that you are the Custodians of this Forest, that once your people and mine lived in peace, but then there was a war, I presume caused by us, because killing and destroying are the best things we can do."

Gregory raised an eyebrow in front of John's self-criticism, genuinely impressed.

"You don’t have to worry," the former soldier went on, "I will not speak to any soul about your existence, I swear it on what I hold most dear."

"Unfortunately, past experiences have taught us that the words of men are phony and inconsistent like fog."

"I can’t blame you if you don’t believe me,” sighed John, remembering Mary's false promises of love. “But I would never hurt Sherlock, I would rather take my life off with my own hands."

Gregory looked at him for a long time and finally shrugged. "The Forest didn’t rejected you, this has to mean something."

"Uh,” John moved on the spot, numb from the cold and eager to get back inside his cabin. “Can I do anything else for you?"

"I should use common sense and tell you to sever any relationship with Sherlock, because we think that the friendship between a Custodian and a human can’t lead to anything good, but there is something about you that keeps me from making this request, and I hope my instincts aren’t wrong. Not to mention that Sherlock would never consent to not see you again just because we want it, and he would find the way to come to you anyway."

"Really?"

"Yes. As I told you, Sherlock is intelligent and perceptive, more than most of us, but he is not a good Custodian. But one day, if we are very lucky, maybe he can become one."

"Do you hope that my friendship will bring him wisdom?” John shook his head with a bitter smile, “if it is wisdom that you look for in me, you’re already wrong."

"No, that's not what I wish."

"So what do you hope that our relationship will bring?"

Gregory didn’t answer, he turned and walked away from the clearing. Then, when it was too far for John to hear, he murmured: "Happiness, for both of you."

Sherlock, with his sharp tongue and his assiduously challenging the rules and traditions of the Custodian community, had always been an outcast, but that wasn’t what Gregory was worried about: other Custodians before Sherlock had had a rebellious spirit and others would have been born in the future generations, those were the normal dynamics of a community like theirs.

No, what worried Gregory, and that perhaps no one had ever noticed, not even his brother, was that he had never seen Sherlock happy or excited about anything, until that human had arrived: for the first time Sherlock was smiling, he was seriously interested in someone, he cared about him and his health. 

It was foolish to encourage their relationship, it was dangerous and probably a mistake, but that man hadn’t made a bad impression to him, and denying to Sherlock (to the both of them) a chance to be happy seemed just as wrong.

"Mycroft will really kill me this time," he sighed, looking up at the gray sky.

He returned to Yggdrasil's garden to report to Mycroft about his conversation with John and noted that the mood in the community was still quite tense: Sherlock had returned to the small valley just before him, bringing human smell back with him and on him, and the murmurs of disapproval that ran from mouth to mouth hadn’t yet been quieted. 

However, as he walked beside the caves, Gregory noted that no one was openly asking to hold a formal meeting to decide whether Sherlock should be banned from the community. Not necessarily a good sign or the beginning of a truce: probably many of them were just waiting to see the relationship between the Custodian and the human collapse under the weight of mutual differences, for then be able to say it aloud, rejoicing because they were right from the beginning.

Mycroft's younger brother sat atop a peak and dug under the snow looking for moss and lichen for one of his eccentric experiments, ostentatiously indifferent to the turmoil he caused.

Gregory shook his head slightly: he could grates on the nerves of everyone like no one else, ever.

"By now, he has chosen his path," Mycroft sighed, sitting on one of the stones that surrounded the pond at the foot of Yggdrasil.

"He has already done it a long time ago, Mycroft."

The Supreme Custodian looked at Gregory carefully. "I see that the human doesn’t have your contempt."

"It's a… particular creature," Gregory conceded.

"Tell me."

 

"John? John, John, John, wake up."

Someone was shaking him insistently, but when John opened his eyes, the cabin was still immersed in total darkness, only the embers of the fire in the fireplace, now extinguished, glowed faintly, lighting up two gray eyes that glistened with excitement.

"S-Sherlock?" He muttered, recognizing his deep voice.

"Yes, it’s me. Get up!"

"But it’s an ungodly hour..." He mumbled, still terribly sleepy.

"Hour? What is a hour?" Sherlock's ears lifted up, and the Custodian seemed anxious to assimilate a new concept of the human world.

"We use them to measure the various parts of the day and night."

"Oh. Well then, it’s the moon has just set over the mountains hour."

So it was barely four o'clock in the morning.

"Did something happen?" John asked, tossing aside the blankets, resigned to get up. The oil lamp illuminated a very confused Custodian.

"You told me to come back tomorrow, and now it's tomorrow."

John rubbed his face and sighed. "Maybe I should have specified 'after sunrise’."

"Are you angry?"

"No,” the human reassured him. “I will sleep a little in the afternoon."

"Sleeping, ugh,” Sherlock curled up his little black nose with disgust. “Sleeping is boring, you don’t do things when you sleep."

"And I bet you didn’t sleep at all tonight because of the excitement."

"What is 'I bet'?" Asked Sherlock, whose curiosity seemed really insatiable.

John rubbed his face in the unsuccessful attempt to get rid of sleep. 

“How can I explain…? It's when you don’t know how it will end a certain event, but you try to guess it anyway."

Obviously John avoided talking about the money used in betting, because the monetary economy was something completely foreign to that bucolic world. And it was better that way.

Sherlock assimilated the concept with attention, then he was distracted by John who took raffia and a lighter to light the fire again in the fireplace, and positioned himself behind him to observe his gestures.

"Do you want to try it?" John asked, holding out his tools, and Sherlock smiled like a child on Christmas morning. 

The human explained to him how to do it, but it wasn’t easy and several attempts failed; in the meantime, John went to take care of the animals in the barn, when Sherlock's cry of triumph reached him there. 

"John! John, I lit the fire!"

The cock ruffled his feathers, deeply offended: he was the only one authorized to scream early in the morning, but John smiled indulgently.

"Great. Now we have breakfast and then we take some tools, so I'll show you what they're for."

It turned out that, as John had suspected, it had been Sherlock who had experimented with them, carving and sawing the pieces of wood that the man had found in the little shed under the rocks as soon as he arrived there, and that, before his arrival, Sherlock spent almost all his free time in that cabin.

Gregory was right: Sherlock was very intelligent, he had understood almost everything by himself, without any explanation or help, and his thirst for learning new things seemed boundless.

That day John showed him how to hammer a nail without hurting his fingers, and how to use spruce resin like a glue. In the following days, Sherlock returned to the cabin very often: they went fishing on the frozen torrent, shoveled the snow and led the animals outdoors if it wasn’t too cold (and John discovered that all the animals understood Sherlock's arcane language), otherwise they would stay at home and talk, or rather, John would answer the Custodian's thousand questions, and try to describe how was the world outside that Forest, while Sherlock literally hung from his lips.

 

One morning, right after breakfast, John rolled one of the calendar cubes he kept on the table and looked at Sherlock with a smile.

"When I had a high fever you did it for me, didn’t you?"

"It seemed important to you: when you walked away from the cabin looking for mushrooms and fruit in the woods, I came to look from the window and saw that you were turning the cubes with numbers on a regular basis."

"Do you know what it's called?"

"No: I understood the mechanism and that the faces of the cubes must be turned at every sunrise, but I still don’t understand why you need to do it."

"It's a calendar, it's used to number the passage of the days of the year, like the sundial that I hung out of the cabin, only that the sundial measures the hours of a single day."

"John, why are humans so preoccupied with measuring time?" Sherlock asked, resting his curly head on his folded arms.

"Aren’t you?"

The Custodian shrugged nonchalantly, a sign that no, that matter was of no interest to him. "When the sun sets, the day is over, when the snow melts the spring is not far, and when the leaves of the trees fall, winter is coming back: the right time comes for everything, Nature knows the his rhythms and she never needed to measure herself. Why do humans have to do it?"

Sherlock's reasoning was so simple, and yet so right that John was left speechless, and all of a sudden, all the men's rush to create complicated clocks and almanacs appeared empty and useless, and their worry over the passing of days seemed a pathetic hysteria, when compared to the slow and light breath of the Earth that could be savored in the Forest, and to the wisdom of those creatures who knew when to do things without having to mark it on a calendar.

"Well?" Sherlock urged, still waiting for an answer.

John put a hand on his head and stroked his thick black curls. "Maybe it's our way of studying something that we can’t fully understand, and, by doing it, we also delude ourselves that we can control it," he tried to explain.

"You can’t control time," Sherlock said, "time just flows."

"I know. I'm sorry, Sherlock, but I fear that the more I talk to you about the world of humans, the more you'll end up considering us inferior beasts, like the other Custodians do."

"Sherlock will never think this of John," he said fiercely, and John slipped a hand over his face, stroking his cheek with his thumb, while Sherlock rubbed his nose against his wrist.

"Thank you, Sherlock."

"Only thank you? Without hug?" He asked hopefully.

John smiled indulgently and spread his arms. "Come here."

In a short time those affectionate gestures had become a routine for them.

John was still deeply amazed that such a marvelous creature yearned for some kind of physical contact with him. It made him feel special, because someone cared about him, a poor war veteran forgotten by the whole world.

The winter days were always long and difficult, shoveling the snow still required considerable physical effort, and sometimes it was so cold that even sleeping curled up in front of the fire wasn’t enough to warm up, but since Sherlock had entered his life, the days seemed to flow more fast and light, and the darkness and the snow no longer seemed too much oppressive.

 

Of the few things that John possessed, two fascinated the Custodian in particular: the spyglass and the glass of the window. 

Regarding the first, John persuaded Sherlock not to open it to see how it worked (he wasn’t quite sure he could get it back together once it was disassembled), and in return he lent it to Sherlock for a whole day.

Sherlock disappeared into the woods, pointing the instrument in every direction, studying and comparing the vision through the lenses with that of birds of prey. He remained outdoors for so long that when he returned to the cabin, his body was covered with small ice crystals, and John hurried to wrap him in a blanket, being careful not to touch his ears, because he had discovered that Sherlock was terribly ticklish there, and if only John touched them by mistake as he stroked his hair, the faun made them flap like the wings of an angry bird, and winked annoyed.

"Aren’t you cold?"

He didn’t know how the Custodians could go around naked with that freezing temperature and not die.

"No, in winter our hair becomes thicker."

"Oh."

The idea that in the spring Sherlock's fleece would be thinner and would emphasize his muscles, elicited a desire inside him that John stubbornly decided to ignore.

 

The other thing that Sherlock liked very much, it was said, was the glass.

"Do you know what it's made of?” asked the Custodian one day, his nose pressed against the window. "It doesn’t smell and I don’t understand."

The Custodians, as well as the other animals of the wood, had an extremely developed sense of smell and lived immersed in a world of odours and perfumes that the humans would never known.

"It’s made of heated sand: when it’s hot enough, and then it’s cooled down, it becomes like this."

"Sand… like the one on the banks of the torrent?"

"Exactly: that is made of quartz and granite, and it’s the most suitable."

"The most? Is there any other kind of sand?"

"Yes, it can be found by the sea, but it’s not very good for making glass."

"What is the sea?"

Sometimes John forgot that the borders of Sherlock's world were very small: the Forest, however vast and imposing, was nothing compared to the vastness of the world. And those borders were too tight for the Custodian, John understood it from his curiosity, his constant questions, and the rapt look in his eyes Sherlock had when he listened to John's stories about the distant places he had seen when he was a soldier.

"The sea is like a huge lake, so wide that from the shore you can’t see its end, its water is salty, its depths unfathomable, its bottom and the land that surround it are made of sand, which can have different colors: rosy, black, dark like the bark of the firs, or as clear as your fleece.”

"I would like to see the sea," sighed Sherlock, as he slid to the floor and stretched his hind legs in front of him, but he spoke without conviction, like a man who said he wanted to reach the moon, because he was aware that it was impossible, that his whole life it was enclosed within the borders of the Forest, and that he could never travel freely around the world.

Seeing him so sad, John came up with an idea to cheer him up.

"Wait up. I can’t take you to the sea, but I can show you how glass is made."

"Really?"

John went to the window, under which there was a rolled canvas he put there to stop the air flow, that he had filled with sand from the torrent. He opened it and drew a small amount of sand, putting it in a mold that he placed on the fire. He raised the temperature of the flames with the bellows and added to the sand some lapis lazuli powder, which he had found long ago in the salt rock cave. 

He worked with the poker and the springs of the fireplace, under Sherlock’s fascinated and attentive gaze, and eventually he asked him to bring some snow in a bucket. He immersed the molten glass in it, and it solidified instantly in a drop with a curved tip that formed a ring. It was irregular and lumpy, but has an intense blue colour.

"Here," John said, placing the pendant in Sherlock's hands, "glass is made this way, and this is the colour of the sea. Do you like?"

"Very much, because it’s the same color as John's eyes."

The man blushed dramatically: it had been years since anyone had paid him such a spontaneous compliment, and it made him feel like a teen again.

"You're red," Sherlock said as he approached him. "Do you have a fever again?"

"N-no,” John cleared his throat, “I'm fine."

When Sherlock was so close to him, with his gray eyes, his full and soft lips, and his sincere admiration for him, it was very, very difficult not to have naughty thoughts.

Fortunately for him, Sherlock got quickly distracted: he lifted the glass drop in the direction of the flames and watched its changing reflections.

"You can keep it, if you want."

"But I have no clothes or pockets, I'm afraid to break it."

"Wait up."

John took a leather string from the trunk and tied the pendant, and then he put it around Sherlock's neck. 

"All right?"

"Yes, so I will bring something of John with me even when I'm not here."

Sometimes Sherlock had to go back to his people and stay there for days. "Custodian duties," he said vaguely, and John never pushed him to tell more, not to create other reasons of tension between him and Sherlock’s people.

To tell the truth, the human never stayed too long alone now, because when Sherlock wasn’t there, every now and then the other Custodian, Gregory, went to see him, even if the latter still approached him with suspicion and detachment.

The only problem with Gregory's visits was that, on his return, Sherlock immediately picked up his smell, and then was gloomy and moody for days, as if Gregory’s presence in John's house was a serious offense to his person.

John was sure that the gray faun was checking him on behalf of Mycroft, Sherlock's mysterious brother, who had never shown himself to him.

The relationship between the two brothers had to be very tense, but John had no reason to doubt that Mycroft genuinely worried about Sherlock: in his youth he had been very protective of his sister Harriet, too, even though their paths had parted over time.

 

"Do you want some tea?" John asked Gregory one day.

"A... what?"

"A tea: they are dried leaves of a plant: once dipped in hot water, they release their flavour. We often drink it with Sherlock, hasn’t he ever told it to you?"

"Sherlock doesn’t talk a lot with me. With none of us, actually."

"I see."

"With you, on the other hand, he talks a lot," observed the gray faun. It wasn’t a question.

"Uninterruptedly," the man replied with a smile.

Gregory slowly drank John's tea, finding that he liked it. 

“I never thought I would say it, but maybe he's better here with you than with us."

John shook his head, sceptical.

"I don’t know, Gregory: sometimes when he talks to me, all the things of my world seem stupid and meaningless, and I wonder what he finds in me."

"As I told you once, Sherlock is very intelligent, and if he sees something in you, something must be there."

It was the closest thing to a compliment Gregory had ever told him, and John nodded, thankful.


	10. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring is approaching, the snow melts, life returns to bloom in the Forest, and everything seems perfect, but suddenly Sherlock starts behaving in a very bizarre way and poor John doesn't understand what is happening.

When the snow began to melt, and for John it became easier to move around in the woods (for Sherlock it had never been a problem), the Custodian led him along another ancient path in the south zone of the Forest, where, along a vertical rock wall, there were some shallow karst caves.

In one of these caves, there were the mortal remains of the anchorite who had lived there about half a century earlier. All that was left of him were the bones held together by the cassock, but Sherlock, who had continued to return to that place to learn to read and write on his books, had decorated the skeleton with a series of objects: a wooden stick resting on his left shoulder, the pen of an eagle in the right hand, numerous crowns of flowers around the neck and on the head, and colored gems in the eye sockets.

"Before you came, he was my friend," said the Custodian, almost proudly.

Any other person would have a stroke in front of that display, would have screamed that it was a blasphemy and a offence to the dead monk, but John understood that Sherlock’s gesture was innocent and certainly he didn’t want to disrespect anyone.

"I came here to read and write, so as not to be discovered by the other Custodians."

Sherlock lifted two planks of wood that covered a hole in the ground, where an old leather pouch was hidden, containing a spelling book, a notebook for writing exercises, and a travel diary.

"The last book is my favorite."

"I thought so," John smiled.

"I never show myself to the anchorite while he was alive, because he kept muttering to himself some litanies he called prayers... he was really strange!"

Yes, probably in the eyes of a creature like Sherlock, who was almost a god himself, the invocations to an invisible god had to appear meaningless.

"Towards the end of this life, he didn’t do anything else all day," Sherlock went on. "He asked someone who wasn’t here to intercede and do things for him, but he never rose a finger to do something himself, not even to get food or drink from the torrent, and in fact he died of thirst and starvation. I just don’t understand it,” he sighed, shaking his head, “the Forest helps and protects us, but we work, we do our part, because no help falls from above without merit or effort."

"There are people who believe they can live on contemplation alone."

"My brother likes contemplative life, too, but he eats as much as three Custodians."

"Because he's a lot wiser."

John flipped through the notebook with the writing exercises, where Sherlock had written the words using a bird's feather and a ink made from blueberry juice. Initially his handwriting was skewed and uncertain, but over time it improved a lot.

"You must be very proud of yourself," John murmured, looking him in the eye.

"I am proud that John is proud of me," Sherlock replied with a smile, resting his forehead on John’s, and John held his breath. It was something they did often, but for some reason that time was different: Sherlock became serious, John let his eyes slip on Sherlock’s lips, and he thought they were so beautiful and pink that...

Suddenly the Custodian raised his ears and widened his eyes, alarmed.

"What's up?"

"Men. Two, with a dog, they’re coming here."

"I don’t hear anything."

"I do: they come from the south." 

Damn, he had been stupid! He was distracted, and now he was in danger, stuck in that cave without exit: the vegetation was still scarce and if he had run away, the two humans would have seen him for sure.

"They come from Fort Barts, then.”

John put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder and pushed him to the bottom of the cave, hiding the entrance with dead creepers. “Don’t worry, I'll take care of it. Stay here and don’t move, whatever happens."

"But…"

"Trust me, Sherlock."

John came out of the cave, looking around, and after a while, he spotted two men with rifles in the distance, and an ash-colored pointer that ran to meet John, barking loudly.

It was likely that, rather than his body odour, the dog had smelled Sherlock's one, so John quickly grabbed it by the collar and held it there, before the dog entered the cave and discovered the Custodian.

"Who's there?" One of the two men asked nervously.

Hunters, probably poachers, since it wasn’t hunting season and they didn’t seem happy to have company; or maybe they were just frightened because they were in the Cursed Forest. In any case, the best thing to do was to try to reassure them and to pose as harmless as possible.

"Calm down, calm, friends,” John proclaimed raising the arm that wasn’t busy holding the pointer. “I was just picking berries and roots."

He knelt down and tore a tuft of wild mint freshly sprouted, crumbling it in his fingers in front of the dog's nose: the strong smell of the leaves covered all the others ones and confused the dog that, lost the trace of Sherlock, whimpered without knowing what to do.

The second hunter called it back cursing loudly, and the dog reached him with his tail between his legs, but the danger hadn’t yet passed, and John continued to paint in his mind the darkest scenarios: what would have happened if the two men had seen Sherlock? He had to protect him at any cost.

"Hey," said the first hunter, "are you the nutter who lives in the Cursed Forest?"

Once, John wouldn’t have reacted well to the insult, but he remembered that he had to protect Sherlock, and let it go.

However, before he had time to say anything, there was a loud roar somewhere in the woods and a gust of icy wind hit them. The two hunters exchanged an alarmed look and hurried back to the valley without waiting for an answer from John, and one of them complained aloud that he had said it was a bad idea to go there, because now the spirits of the Forest were angry with them.

To tell the truth, it was only a small avalanche, fallen somewhere in the woods, and they’re been hit by the blast, but John certainly wouldn’t have pursued them to tell them they were wrong.

He kept checking until he was certain that the two men had disappeared, then returned to Sherlock and sighed with relief, because he had been really tensed all the time.

"Let’s go. I must say that the legend of the evil spirits is effective to keep the intruders away: they got scared for nothing."

"John,” Sherlock looked at him, and he was extremely serious. “This Forest is alive, has its own Spirit, you must never doubt of this: it’s not just a legend."

"Has been the Forest to induce the avalanche?"

"No, not this time: it doesn’t react for something as insignificant as two poachers."

"But would it react to more serious issues?"

"If it were necessary, yes."

"I see. Tell me, was it really the Forest to unleash the Great Plague?" He asked, to satisfy his long-standing curiosity. Sherlock looked down and didn’t answer.

"Two hundred years ago some men tried to take possession of this Forest," John went on, "and the Forest unleashed the plague, isn’t it?"

Again the Custodian fell silent and John sighed, regretting having talked about a subject that had made Sherlock so uncomfortable.

"I think it was a serious issue from the point of view of the Forest,” concluded the former soldier. “Let's go back and bring the books with us: if they stay a little longer in such a cold and damp place, they will eventually become moldy and disintegrate."

"Are... aren’t you angry with me?" Asked Sherlock in amazement, looking up at him.

"Of course not: why should I be?"

"We Custodians are the executors of the will of the Forest, and that plague is as if it had been provoked by us."

He couldn’t explain exactly to John how the Portal and the rites of the Custodians worked, but, in short, that was the truth.

"You were attacked and you defended yourself, that's all."

"But…"

"And then you aren’t barbarians: you live according to the laws of Nature, which are rigorous but impartial and clear: there is no place for malice, deception and subterfuge here, and you also know how to show compassion and tolerance. So no,” John took Sherlock’s hands and held them in his, “I'm not angry with you, and you have no reason to be ashamed of what it happened. Now let's go."

They walked away; John didn’t let Sherlock's hand go all the time, and this dissipated Sherlock's melancholy in a flash. When they came in sight of the clearing, John's eyes rested on the monolith, and he took the opportunity to ask Sherlock if he knew the meaning of the strange symbols carved on the stone, now worn-out by the weather.

"Of course, it's in the language of the Custodians."

"And can you translate it for me?"

Sherlock ran a hand over the stone and recited the words, first in his arcane native language, then in John's one.

"Getting lost in me is not losing oneself, it’s overcoming oneself to find oneself again."

"Oh, it's a very deep, philosophical thought, I guess, but…” John chuckled, embarrassed, and scratched the nape of his neck. “I haven’t studied much in my life, I don’t understand what it means."

He looked at the Custodian in the eye, hoping he could explain it better to him, but Sherlock answered him in an even more enigmatic way: "You're wrong, you know very well, only you don’t know it yet."

John tried to think about it for a few moments, but finally shook his head with a sigh.

"I only know that if I think about it too much, I will get a headache, I prefer to tend the vegetable garden and shovel the snow."

 

As spring approached, Sherlock became more and more active and lively, in perfect harmony with the Forest that was preparing to awaken after the long winter sleep.

One morning, John stopped to look at the sky, while he was hanging the washed clothes outdoors. He placed his hands on his hips, took a deep breath, then closed his eyes, shook his head in disbelief, and a small chuckle left his throat.

"What is it, John?" Sherlock asked, looking at him with curiosity.

"Nothing, I was just thinking..." he paused and laughed again, louder, while the faun tilted his head, puzzled and confused.

"John?"

"I survived, Sherlock!” He exclaimed, carding a hand through Sherlock’s curls. “I survived the winter."

"Are you surprised about it?"

'Well, yes!” John said, scratching an eyebrow. “I mean, this is so unfathomable,” he stretched an arm to indicate the clearing and the surrounding high mountains, “and I'm so insignificant..."

"John is not insignificant!" Sherlock protested vehemently.

"In front of the the vastness of the world, I am."

_ "John is not insignificant to me, John is everything," _ thought the Custodian, but for some strange reason, these words couldn’t leave his lips, blocked by an unusual shyness, similar to the one that had caught him the first time he and John had met.

 

The first time John found one of Sherlock’s tuft of hair on his hand as he was stroking his back, he panicked, thinking it was mange [1], but Sherlock reassure him and said that it was just the shedding and that happened every year.

"Soon the snow will withdraw from the clearing, and the flowers will bloom again."

"I can’t wait for it," John said, and combed Sherlock’s hair with a fine comb to facilitate the shedding. 

The Custodian liked it so much that he ended up falling asleep on John’s lap. Seeing him so relaxed, John didn’t want to wake him up and move to the bed. 

He moved aside gently, took a bear fur and covered Sherlock up to his chin, stopping to look at him, mesmerized. Sherlock was sleeping with his parted lips, and his long ears folded on his cheeks; yielding to an impulse, John brought his face close to Sherlock’s, lingered a few millimeters from his mouth, but at the last moment he withdrew, kissing him on the forehead: it wasn’t right to take advantage of Sherlock while he slept, even though it was getting damn hard to restrain himself.

 

So, contrary to the predictions of the villagers (and his own predictions), John had survived the deadly Alpine winter, but now he was happy to see disappear the monotonous and cold white cover of snow, as the world filled again with colors and scents. Snowdrops were sprouting bravely in the meadows, attracting the first insects of the season, the birds were returning to launch their love calls in the air, a subtle energy ran across the sky and the earth, encouraging life to born again, and John felt infected by it.

For many years, he had hated and feared spring, because it marked the end of the winter truce of the war; he would have never thought that one day he would associate the word "spring" with "life".

By now, Sherlock had moved in his cabin on a permanent basis: he went back to his people few times, just to feed himself; he helped John in his daily work, went fishing with him, and slept next to him (often on him, actually) all the nights in the small mezzanine.

John was happy not to be alone anymore, ecstatic that Sherlock was living there with him, but the arrangement for the night began to create him serious problems in keeping his thoughts disciplined and acting like a gentleman.

Sherlock was beautiful, this was the first thing John had thought when he had seen him hurt in the snow, and now, with his thin spring fur, he seemed almost naked, and the former soldier's fantasy ran wild.

John relieved himself every time Sherlock left the clearing and he was alone, but he feared that soon that wouldn’t be enough to calm him, and that, sooner or later, one morning he and Sherlock would wake up with a huge and hard  _ issue  _ between them, and John really wouldn’t know where to start to talk about sex with him.

He couldn’t know that Sherlock's thoughts weren’t dissimilar to his own: the Custodian had understood that he had been attracted to the human for a long time, perhaps since that time when he had spied on John while he was masturbating on the bank of the torrent.

One night he stayed awake until dawn to look at John's sleeping face, to breathe his scent, to think about what John had become for him in those months, and what he could still become.

The next morning Sherlock announced to John that he had to leave for a few days, and not to worry about him.

"Custodian duties?" John joked.

"I have to go," Sherlock said evasively, and hopped off quickly, but he didn’t return to Yggdrasil's garden. He needed to think, and the presence of the other Custodians would distract him.

Fortunately, Sherlock knew many places in the woods where to hide and be alone; he reached an isolated peak, where only some courageous arolla pines grew, and he lay down, curled up on himself under their shadow.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath: the mating season was back again, as every year, but this time it was different. 

Sherlock had always loathed that time of year, he usually walked through Yggdrasil’s garden like a man sentenced to death, blowing irritated from his nostrils every time a female called him to her nest. He had always thought he would never have a mate and would remain alone all his life, and it was all right for him, because he had never known anyone worthy of becoming his mate, no one who made him feel anything.

Then John had arrived and everything had changed.

John, with his bright smile, his genuine admiration for him, his warm, calm voice, his golden skin and his intense smell, John, who made him feel unknown sensations.

It wasn’t an easy decision to take: Sherlock was aware that it would change his life and his own body forever, but it was the right decision, because he could no longer imagine a life without John, and have him as a companion would have been a priceless privilege.

It was set, then: Sherlock would do his best to show John his intentions.

 

When Sherlock returned to the clearing, a couple of days later, John immediately noticed that there was something different about him, so much that he felt prompted to ask if he had fighted with Mycroft or Gregory, but the Custodian denied it, puzzled by John’s words.

But something had happened for sure, because Sherlock’s excitement for the upcoming spring had disappeared, he had become saturnine and spent a lot of time staring at John insistently from a distance, until the human felt very embarrassed about it.

"Among us humans it’s not very polite to stare at someone for so long," he finally said, because that scrutiny was really making him uncomfortable.

"Why?" Sherlock asked, almost offended by his words.

"It seems to us that we’re been judged. Did I say or do something that upset you?"

Sherlock didn’t answer him and walked away, leaving poor John bewildered; the man looked at Rodrigo, looking for an improbable help, but the mule only shook his head and resumed to graze, as if to say that it wasn’t his business.

"What's the matter with him?" John muttered, as he came back to chop wood.

Sherlock returned to him in the evening, when John thought he wouldn’t see him again that day, and brought him a wreath of flowers that he put around his neck.

"Where did you find them?"

Only a few snowdrops had sprung up in the clearing, it was still too early for other plants to blossom.

Along the river that flows eastward, near the village."

"Are you crazy? Why did you take such a risk?" John was incredulous and even angry: he thought that after the incident with the two poachers, Sherlock would have become more cautious, not the other way around.

"Don’t... don’t you like the flowers?" The Custodian mumbled, disappointed.

"Yes, I like them, but this is not the point: you must not run into danger just to pick flowers. What if someone saw you? You did something really stupid!"

"I've lived here longer than you, and it never happened! I'm not a child, John, and I’m not stupid!"

Sherlock jumped up and left again, leaving John more and more confused.

"I'd really like to know what the hell is going on," he sighed as he slipped under the covers and got ready to sleep alone. He struggled to sleep that night, because he had grown used to the weight and warmth of Sherlock's body next to his, and because he didn’t want to fight with his best friend, with... with the most important person in his life.

Because it was like that, right?

Of course it was: there was no one as important as Sherlock in his life.

Perhaps there had never been anyone so important in his life, and that was why the fight worried him a lot.

 

Next time the flowers appeared in large quantities on John’s the bed: warm colours alternating with the cold ones, twisted in a serpentine that was a true work of art. 

This time John didn’t get angry, because Sherlock told him he didn’t pick them near the village, but he gave him an uncertain look anyway: what was Sherlock trying to tell him, that his bed stank? But he changed the straw often, he washed the sheet with soap, and Sherlock had never complained. In fact the Custodian had said many times that John shouldn’t cover his natural odour with soap.

Besides, Sherlock was looking at him with too hopeful eyes to be a subtle criticism to his hygiene.

Perhaps he was waiting for compliments for his artistic creation (that was indeed really beautiful)?

"Er... I like it a lot,” John ventured. “But why are there on my bed? Where am I going to sleep tonight?"

"I take them away, then," Sherlock murmured, ears lowered, as he picked up all the flowers.

"If you want, you can place them in a corner of the cabin where I don’t ruin them, for example over the trunk, or in a vase" John suggested, thinking of doing him a favour, but Sherlock took them into the barn, to his animals to eat them, and John had the unpleasant feeling that he had said something deeply wrong that had hurt Sherlock.

But what?

That situation was becoming increasingly strange.

 

Lastly, headbutts started.

Sometimes they were light bumps that Sherlock gave him with the forehead, on John’s head or shoulder, to which John responded with uncertain and confused smiles, sometimes they were stronger and rather painful blows, that the human didn’t like at all, and he told Sherlock to stop.

One morning, while John was busy plowing the vegetable garden, preparing it for sowing, he suddenly received a powerful headbutt between his shoulder blades, that made him fall forward face down on the ground.

"Thats enough!” John exclaimed, exasperated. “Explain to me what the hell is wrong with you!”

"But I…"

"I'm working Sherlock, I'm busy and I don’t have time for your games."

The faun ran away again, and John shook his head: he really didn’t understand, he was going crazy!

He went to the basin to rinse and clean his face, and when he turned to get the towel, Gregory was sitting on the woodpile, watching him; surprised, John hit the basin, knocking it over, and ended up lying on the ground again.

"Again?” asked the Custodian, stunned by his clumsiness. “How many times will this scene be repeated, John?"

"Can you avoid to always appear behind my back? I'm already nervous enough without surprises."

"Excuse me, I tend to forget that you humans don’t hear anything... no offense."

"None taken.” John took a deep breath in trying to calm down. “Actually I was hoping to talk with you about Sherlock."

"Yes, I guessed," Gregory interrupted, "but I'll need one of your teas to deal with this."

John looked at him, more and more perplexed, but invited him into the cabin and made the tea; opening the jar he noticed that the leaves were almost finished: sooner or later he would have to go down to Fort Barts to buy supplies, but now he had other things on his mind and set aside that thought.

Gregory looked like he would rather stumble on a wasp's nest than face that conversation, which made John very nervous.

"From what you know, did I say or do something that may have offended Sherlock?” John asked. “Lately he behaves strangely, he does some bizarre things that I don’t understand, I get angry, we quarrel and I always end up making him run away."

"No, you didn’t do anything wrong, the two of you simply stumbled into one of the many cultural differences between our two peoples."

"So… Is Sherlock doing something  _ cultural  _ bringing flowers and headbutting me?" John didn’t think about it.

Gregory took a long sip of tea and sighed, scratching his head with one of his hind legs. John still didn’t get used to how much those creatures were nimble.

"In a way."

Gregory looked at him, hoping the human would understand, but John shook his head, more confused than before.

"It's a ritual" the Custodian pointed out, increasingly reluctant to speak.

"Ah, so it has to do with magic?" John ventured, but he realized he was wrong again when he saw the gray faun rolling his eyes, invoking strength and patience from Yggdrasil.

"No, you are right off track."

"Then what? Speak clearly, please."

"You are adults, and this is really a matter that you should talk privately between you, believe me."

"But how can I do, if I don’t understand what's going on?" The human whined.

"Sherlock is carrying out a courtship ritual,” Gregory blurted, and then turned to look at the fireplace. “Now do you understand why I was so reluctant to talk about it?"

"A... a..." John stammered, blushing dramatically, then he stared into the void, trying to curb the images that were forming in his mind against his will.

He was overwhelmed by the revelation, but at the same time relieved, because he thought that the attraction he felt for the Custodian was one-way and unrequited, that Sherlock had no interest in sex and love.

But if he was courting him, it wasn’t like that.

God, that changed everything.

John finished the tea in silence, calmed down and looked at his empty cup: Sherlock wanted him as a companion, and had done his best to make him understand, but John had misunderstood everything, ending up rejecting his gestures of affection, unknowingly cruel. Poor Sherlock, he had broken his heart.

"I had no idea," John whispered.

"I guess you humans don’t make a nest or something like that."

"No, and we don’t headbutt each other."

"And to be honest, Sherlock's attempts would be clumsy even in the eye of a Custodian, let alone yours."

"He... he’s not used to... uh... woo someone, right?" This at least was quite clear to John: according to his own words, Sherlock had no friends among his people, and he got along with very few other Custodians.

"In eighty years of life, this is the first time that he courts someone. He has been the object of the attention of the females of our community many times, but he has never shown interest in mating and creating a family."

"EIGHTY?” John shouted, “Sherlock is eighty years old?

The revelation was such a shock that it made him forget for a moment that Sherlock wanted him to be his companion. 

Well... at least John could stop feeling like an old pervert when he jerked off fantasizing about him.

"According to your calculation of time, yes."

"But he looks so young..."

"It's a bit more than third of the average life of us Custodians."

"Re-really?" John stammered: the average life of a human being barely reached fifty years during peaceful times, but with wars, famines and epidemics could be even less.

"Now I understand why you find us so insignificant. Does Sherlock know how little we humans live in comparison to you?"

"He may seem naive to you, but he is still a Custodian, he is perfectly aware of the situation, and now you are too. If I can give you some advice, John, the best thing you can do is talk with him, and tell him you're not interested. Surely he will take it badly, but over time he will understand and resign."

"Stop seeing each other... it would be the wisest thing to do, isn’t it?” John murmured, looking at his hands, ruined by hard work. “After all, my life is short compared to his, I could be with him only for a few years, not to mention that your community already disapproves us. Tell me Gregory, would Sherlock risk exile if he becomes my life companion? Would you really do that to him, even if you proclaim not to be barbaric like humans?"

The Custodian was very surprised by John’s words, as they weren’t what he expected, and for long moments he didn’t reply, then he recovered, seeing that the human was still waiting for an answer.

"Is this your main concern? Not the fact that you belong to two different species?"

John dismissed Gregory's concern with a shrug.

"I have never cared about this, but Sherlock has already done so much for me, I don’t want our relationship to hurt him and that, because of me, he ends up antagonizing his own people permanently."

"I don’t understand John, is your compassion?"

"Of course not!" John replied, almost offended by the insinuation.

"You say you're his friend, then, don’t you think Sherlock deserves honesty and clarity from you? Unless…” Gregory put his elbows on the table and leaned toward him, definitely surprised. “I assumed that you would have rejected him because of your differences, and because you’re not interested in a relationship with him, but it’s not like that: the feelings that Sherlock has for you, are not indifferent to you, isn’t it?"

John blushed, but he didn't avert his gaze from Gregory: he had nothing to be ashamed of.

"John, I believe you must search clarity in your heart, first of all."

"My heart is clearer than the waters of the torrent, Gregory."

"This can’t be a game, nor a momentary whim: mating is a very serious matter for us."

"I understand it well: I know you Custodians thinks that humans are just unreliable liars, but I would never joke about it."

The Custodian narrowed his eyes. "I hope so, because even if Sherlock is not well seen in our community, none of us would forgive you if you dare to hurt him."

"I would never do that!" John exclaimed heatedly.

The Custodian sighed, as if Sherlock and John were two lost causes, and then stood up. 

"I only ask you to think about it very, very well before making a decision."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Mange is a disease that affects many animals, especially ungulates. It’s caused by a parasite similar to a mite that slips under the skin and causes the loss of fur.


	11. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having clarified the misunderstandings between them, John agrees to become Sherlock's life companion.  
> It's mating time, baby.

When Gregory left, John followed his advice: in his heart he was sure of his feelings, but thinking about them some more wouldn't have done any harm.

He closed his eyes and thought about how much his life had changed in the last months, since he had met Sherlock: he had been so alone, silently desperate and bitter with the whole world, before knowing Sherlock, while now he felt a joy and a will of living that he believed lost forever.

John no longer wondered why he was tending the vegetable garden, splitting the wood or making preserves for the winter, he was no longer tempted to abandon everything and let himself die. All thanks to Sherlock, who had entered his life, first tiptoeing, secretly, then with explosive force, with his curiosity and his thousand questions about the world, now naive, now fun, now extremely serious. 

Sherlock... 

Sherlock, who had driven the loneliness out of the door, helping him survive a endless winter.

Sherlock, who had made him feel loved and happy again.

Sherlock who had broken the ancestral ban of his community and challenged the spirit of the Forest to stand beside him. Him, a small and insignificant human, with a blood-filled past, a future full of uncertainties, and with little or nothing to offer him.

And there had been, since the beginning, moments when John had looked at the Custodian, struck by his intelligence, yes, but also undoubtedly rapt by his beauty. With time, those vague feelings had become stronger, clearer and more real, and John wasn’t able to oppose them anymore.

He liked Sherlock, he was sure of that, and to know that his feelings were not unrequited was wonderful.

The Custodian was a male and wasn’t even human, outside the Forest their union would be seen by everyone as an abominable sin, a blasphemy in the eyes of God, and they would both be burned alive at the stake, with the angry mob around to them screaming and throwing stones.

But John discovered that he didn’t care about the judgment of men, especially of those who claimed to understand God's will, because none of them had done anything good for him, unlike Sherlock. 

He had been used by the army of his Kingdom until he had been able to fight, and then put aside, insulted for his disability, humiliated when he had tried to build a new life. 

Did the whole humanity consider Sherlock wrong? To hell with them, Sherlock was right for him, and nothing else mattered.

And then the Forest could protect their relationship: nobody knew about them, no one would hurt them there.

When John opened his eyes, he realized he had already made a decision a long time ago, and it was the right decision.

He got up and went out into the clearing, because he had something important to do.

However, as the hours passed, he began to worry, because Sherlock didn’t return: John hoped he hadn’t hurt his feelings too much, and didn’t chase him away forever.

The thought made him sick.

He ate something for dinner, but he wasn’t really hungry despite the tiring day, and he continued to look in the direction of the door, hoping to see it open.

When the sky turned purple and the first stars began to glow, John left a small oil lamp burning in front of the door: he would wait up, it was important.

 

Sherlock hadn’t gone very far, but he was really demoralized: John had rejected all his attempts at courtship, and he couldn’t understand why. 

They got along well, they loved each other's company, John was good and affectionate with him, he always told him to go back to his cabin, wanted him there, so why did he behave like that? Perhaps he was only interested in him as a friend but not as a companion? The theory demoralized him even more, and he was about to return to Yggdrasil's garden, at least for that night, when he saw the light of the oil lamp shine in the night, like a small offering of peace, so he changed his mind and walked slowly toward the cabin.

John was about to lose hope of seeing Sherlock that night, when he heard a slight clatter of hooves at the door.

"Come in, Sherlock."

The Custodian wrinkled his nose, smelling Gregory, and stood in the doorway, definitely not in a good mood.

"Please," John insisted, "you’re letting the cold in."

"I don’t know,” Sherlock muttered, sulkily, “maybe you prefer his company to mine."

"What are you saying? I've seen Gregory only a dozen times since I've been here."

The Custodian's disappointment showed no signs of waning, but now John knew why.

"Are you jealous?" He ventured.

"I don’t know the meaning of this word," Sherlock said, hiding his face behind the door, but John was inclined to think he was lying; yet he decided to keep it to himself, and simply show him that he had no reason to be jealous.

"Come on,” John extended his right hand. “I want to show you something."

The curiosity got the better of the Custodian: he finally broke away from the door and entered.

"I've been very rude to you recently, and I'm sorry,” John said, approaching the bed and inviting Sherlock to climb the ladder, “but I simply didn’t understand."

Sherlock looked away. 

"I thought you weren’t interested in me."

"No." The human pulled the sheet from the bed, revealing three small wreaths of flowers he had made that day, and Sherlock started.

"Yours were much nicer, unfortunately I'm not very good with delicate jobs," John said with a hint of embarrassment. "But I hope they'll be fine anyway."

"Did you make a nest for me?" The Custodian whispered, full of wonder.

"I tried."

"And… do you know what that means?"

"Gregory explained it to me."

"Don’t humans make a nest for their companions?"

"No."

"Don’t they look intently to another person to make them understand that they are interested?"

"No. And if I ever headbutt someone, they would chase me with a pitchfork."

"Oh!” Now the reason for their misunderstanding was clear to Sherlock. “Then, what do you do when...?"

"When we like someone?"

Sherlock nodded silently, and John took courage: he placed two fingers under his chin, closed his eyes and kissed him gently on the lips; just a light and chaste touch, but Sherlock didn’t return it. He stood still, so John opened his eyes to make sure he was fine.

"What... what did you do? W-What was that?" Sherlock asked, brushing his lips with one finger: he was trembling slightly, and the black of the pupils had swallowed the gray of his eyes.

"A kiss."

"K-kiss," Sherlock spelled, continuing to run his finger over his lips.

"Don’t the Custodians kiss each other?"

"No."

Here, John had made yet another false step, and probably Sherlock was horrified by his move. 

"There's no problem, Sherlock: if you don’t like it, you don’t have to... mph!"

John couldn’t finish the sentence, because Sherlock launched at him, sending him crashing against the table, and pressed his lips tightly on John’s again and again, with an enthusiasm that dispelled all the doubts of the human: kissing was fine, it was more than fine.

John let him lead, to get Sherlock familiar with kissing, but after a while he tried to take control of those impetuous kisses, that were quickly awakening in him long-forgotten desires.

John took Sherlock face in his hands, caressing his cheekbones with his thumbs and licked his lips slowly, inviting Sherlock to open them; the Custodian obeyed, still uncertain, but his hesitation dissipated as John's tongue touched his. It was strange, like a caress, but made without using hands, and the Custodian didn’t take long to decide he liked it.

"Is this a kiss too?"

"Yes."

"I really like these human habits."

Sherlock imitated John, licking his lips briefly and then slipping his tongue into his mouth, and John approved with a soft moan.

Focussed on the methodical exploration of John’s mouth, Sherlock didn’t notice that John had bent slightly to slip an arm behind his knees, until John lifted him off the ground, like during their first meeting.

John laid him on the carpet in front of the fireplace, took off his shirt and trousers, throwing them away, but he hesitated before taking off his underwear, suddenly remembering how nervous he was his first time, when a girl from his village took him by the hand and led him into the chestnut wood.

Gregory had told him that Sherlock had never had a partner, and John didn’t know how to deal with the subject without offending him.

In the meantime, Sherlock seemed extremely fascinated by John’s body and traced the outline of his muscles with his fingertips (the hard life in the mountains had its positive effects), then he slid his fingers down John’s chest to the hem of his pants, where he stopped.

"Can I?"

John nodded, and the nimble fingers of the faun untied his pants.

Then Sherlock crouched down on the floor, looking at John’s genitals with great interest.

"We aren’t so different, are we?" The human asked with a little laugh, to dispel the embarrassment.

"Mmh, but I already knew... once I saw you,” Sherlock confessed in a whisper. “You were on the bank of the torrent and you were..."

"Really?” An amused smile spread across John's face, while his hand slipped along Sherlock's arm in a reassuring caress. “What did you feel?”

Sherlock's hands came up from John’s ankles to the inside of his thighs, and John dropped his head to the floor with a hoarse sigh: he was extremely sensitive in that zone, and Sherlock seemed to know that.

"It was…” Sherlock frowned, looking for a suitable term, “contagious."

"C-contagious?" Surely not what John expected to hear.

"Here... you were touching yourself, and a moment later I felt the need to touch myself. It was strange, because I never felt like that," Sherlock mumbled, looking down, an adorable touch of pink on his cheeks.

"Oh!” John sat up and pushed Sherlock back to the floor with a delighted smile, “Got it: I made you excited."

"Is it not good?"

"Oh no, Sherlock, it’s very, very good."

"Hm..." Sherlock's voice was reduced to an uncertain and shaky moan the moment when John's hands rested on his body and they ran along him in a long and sensual caress.

It wasn’t the first time that John touched him, but this time it was different: it made his heart beat faster, and he felt dizzy, as if all his blood had flowed away from his brain; he understood exactly where, when John's hand slipped audaciously between his legs and grabbed him tightly. 

The sensation took his breath away: it was the first time he was touched by a hand that was not his, and he bit his lips not to scream, but John put a finger on them and shook his head.

"Sherlock, let go."

"But..." Sherlock felt exposed, vulnerable under the gaze of another person in such an intimate moment.

"Here there’s only you and me, don’t hold yourself in front of me, never," John murmured as he jerked him off in his calloused hand.

A wave of pleasure swept over Sherlock, and he came with a cathartic cry.

John hadn’t expected it to end so quickly, but perhaps it was foreseeable, the first time, given Sherlock’s inexperience. John’s cock throbbed between his legs and he was about to ask Sherlock if he wanted to look at him or even touch him, when the Custodian sat up and rubbed against him.

"Why did you stop? Again, John..."

John’s eyes widened in surprise.

"Al-already? Don’t you need… uh… to rest a little?"

"No, we do it three or four times in a row. Is it different for humans?"

"F-four? Oh…” John stammered, clearing his throat. “Er… we do it once... twice when we are younger, but anyway we need more time to recover, after... you understand, right?”

John hadn’t thought about the physiologic differences between them, and Gregory wouldn’t talk about it to him, not even under torture.

"Is that a problem?" Asked Sherlock, who in the meantime was glued on John.

"No, not at all," John replied, kissing him along the neck. "In fact, I can take advantage of it to spoil you."

"I don’t know this word."

"Don’t worry, I'm sure you'll like it."

John brought back his lips on Sherlock’s, and kissed him with abandon, pushing him to the floor again. He left Sherlock lying by the fire for a moment to take some walnut oil, essential to what we wanted to do; he lubed two fingers, lifted Sherlock’s hips slightly, bringing a hand under his back, and began to prepare him, stroking his hole with slow circular movements.

Sherlock knew immediately what John wanted to do, but first there was something important the human needed to know: it wouldn’t be right to keep this from him.

"Wait," Sherlock gasped, putting his hands on John’s chest, and John pulled away.

"Of course,” he reassured him. “If you don’t feel like it, we don’t have to do anything, we can wait."

"No, it's not that, I want all of this with you, but there is something you need to know, about us Custodians."

"Tell me everything," John encouraged, kissing him on the temple.

"When... when we choose a mate, it's for life, and I don’t know if this applies to humans, too: maybe you don’t want such a long commitment... Hmmm..."

John interrupted Sherlock with another kiss. 

"I have already decided: I'll be yours, for all the time we will have together,” he promised, “and I only regret that it will be few, compared to your life."

Sherlock shook his head and caught one of John's hand between his own, kissing the knuckles.

"It's not a problem."

"In the long term it will be,” John murmured, lacing his fingers with Sherlock’s. “I would really stay with you until the end. Forgive me for it’s not going to happen."

"Don’t think, don’t think about it now. Please, go on."

One day Sherlock would tell John the truth, but right now he just wanted to be his.

John started again to prepare him, slowly, while Sherlock’s breathing became faster and faster: he was extremely sensitive and the slightest touch was enough to make him jump in pleasure and bring him close to the orgasm.

John stopped in time, and used the rest of the oil to lube himself, then he lay on his back and held out a hand to Sherlock, inviting him to sit on him. It was his first time and John wanted Sherlock to have full control of everything, for him to explore and savour the moment as he liked.

Sherlock positioned himself over John’s cock, and then slid down on him, slowed down by John’s hands on his hips.

John wanted to tame his natural impetuosity: he know that, left alone, Sherlock would have taken him too quickly, ending up hurting himself, because, well, he wasn’t small, so he helped him to go slow, to get used to the intrusion. 

Anyway, as soon as John moved his hands away from his body, Sherlock sat up on his knees and slammed down, and a wave of pleasure exploded throughout his body. Sherlock's mouth fell open in surprise, but no sound came out, and he immediately repeated the movement, even more forcefully.

"Uuuh... oh oh… John..."

"Go slow, Sherlock!" John gasped.

But Sherlock was totally lost in the discovery of those sensations he never felt before, and rode John with a feverish pace, stammering something in a language that John didn’t understand.

John just lay down and let himself been used for his pleasure, enjoying the show of his moans of pleasure and of his face twisted in ecstasy, and this time he didn’t even have to touch Sherlock to make him come.

Sherlock sat on him for long moments, head bent forward, breathing hard, shoulders rising and lowering, arms trembling.

"Are you okay?" John asked, stroking his tousled curls.

Sherlock nodded and then lay down on him, a warm, soft and silky blanket, and covered his face with kisses.

"John..." he moaned, his voice still full of desire, and the human raised an eyebrow, shocked.

"Again? Seriously?"

"Hmm,” Sherlock nodded. “I told you, and then you haven’t yet..."

Sherlock stroked John’s thigh and finally held his cock in his long, thin fingers, slowly moving his fist, until John blocked his wrist: he had held back, letting Sherlock set the pace, but now it was his turn.

He pushed Sherlock down, and brought his legs over his shoulders, almost bending him in half as he penetrated him again, crushing him to the floor with his weight, until they almost glued, their breaths mingling, their kisses almost desperate.

John rocked his hips again and again, and Sherlock clung tightly to him. He came first again, clamping John hard and dragging him into ecstasy.

After catching their breath, John slipped out of him, and Sherlock's legs fell heavy on the floor; the faun had such a dazed look that he looked drunk.

"Are you okay?"

Sherlock lifted his head with difficulty to look at him. 

"John... it's the second time you ask me... does mating cause memory loss in humans?" He asked naively, and John laughed heartily.

"No, no,” he reassured him, carding a hand through his hair. “I just want to make sure you liked it."

"I will never like anything more than this."

"I’m extremely flattered."

Sherlock sighed, satisfied, rubbing his nose against John's, then a thought crossed his mind and stopped.

"Did you like it? Even if I'm not human?"

"I confess you a secret,” John whispered in his ear. “It was the most amazing night of my life."

 

Later, in the middle of the night, they moved on the bed: John was lying on his back and Sherlock’s head rested on his chest. 

John was combing Sherlock’s thick and messy curls: he loved to take care of him in more than a way.

Sherlock had always been reluctant to physical contact, he couldn’t even bear to be rubbed on the back by other Custodians during the shedding period, but he let John do it. John was different: his gestures were always welcome, and he never thought to escape or rebel against them.

Was this what it meant to have a companion? Learning to love what he normally hated?

"I used to hate the mating season," Sherlock said, and the comb in his hair paused for a moment.

"But now, not anymore?"

"No."

"Good."

The comb came back gently, but it stopped again shortly thereafter.

"Did you say season?” It wasn’t difficult to catch some concern in John's voice. “Er... I mean... do you only mate in spring?"

"Yes. Humans don’t?"

"No, we usually do it... well, when we feel like it."

Sherlock lifted his head and looked at him with wide eyes, ears vibrating with excitement. "Always?"

"Yes."

"Oh, like the rodents."

John laughed at being compared to a mouse or a rabbit, and kissed Sherlock on the forehead, while the Custodian was contemplating the idea of mating even after spring.

"You don’t have to worry," he said finally, rubbing himself on John to mark him with his scent. “You can do it with me whenever you want."

"No Sherlock,” John answered, lifting his face to kiss him again. “We will do it every time we both want."

Sherlock rubbed his nose on his face. "Even now?"

"Someone is getting very demanding," John chuckled and slid his hands down his back.

"Is it a problem?"

"Oh no: indeed I can teach you the joy of taking things slowly," he murmured, reversing their position.

 

The next morning, John woke up a lot later than usual, but before Sherlock: it had never happened before, and it made him smile.

_ "Poor love,”  _ he thought, kissing him on a cheek.  _ “He was really exhausted." _

He stretched with a satisfied hum, got dressed, opened the door of the cabin, and stood still in shock: the clearing was immersed in a thick, impenetrable fog, that prevented him to even see the vegetable garden that was next to the cabin. It was an unusual and curious phenomenon, because that wasn’t fog season and, in any case, it had never been so thick.

His soldier's senses reawakened instantly: it wasn’t normal, that wasn’t a natural phenomenon, probably it was the result of some magic of the Custodians or of the spirit of the Forest.

Perhaps… was it for what he and Sherlock had done?

Trying not to be affected by disquiet, and holding a hand on the wall of the cabin, he moved to the back to retrieve a few logs of wood, but when he picked them up the fog thickened further, so much that he could no longer see his feet, leaving him disoriented.

Sherlock's voice suddenly made itself heard, loud and alarmed: "John? John, where are you?"

"I'm here,” he answers. “Definitely close to the cabin, but I don’t understand where. This fog is strange, I think it's caused by someone."

"Indeed it is! It’s my brother. Mycroft, go away!" Sherlock shouted angrily, somewhere beyond the cold, damp wall.

"If it was your brother, there's no reason to be so alarmed, Sherlock," John said, but this time he didn’t get an answer, nor did he hear any typical sound of the Forest, like the titmouses chirping, the monotonous call of the cuckoo, the torrent that flowed not far away, the light wind among the branches of the firs, as if suddenly everything had disappeared, swallowed by the fog.

Then a tall, imposing and majestic faun with big antlers emerged from the spirals of fog right in front of him, catching him by surprise.

"Are you sure of what you say, human?"

"My name is John, Mycroft, I think you know,” he replied calmly. “And if you had knocked on my door, I would have invited you in to drink a tea."

"You don’t look scared," said the Supreme Custodian.

"Because you don’t look scary," John said, stil calm. He was aware that, sooner or later, a confrontation between himself and Mycroft was bound to happen, and he wanted to prove to Sherlock's brother that his hostility towards him was groundless.

"And what if I told you that I used only a fraction of my power? That my power, used to its maximum, could destroy everything in an instant? What if I showed what we Custodians and this Forest are really capable to do?"

"I’d reply that I’m still not scared, because a Custodian would never do something like that without a reason."

If his words impressed the faun with the big antlers, nothing transpired on Mycroft's face.

"True, we aren’t like you, but don’t think you’ve understood us, human."

"John,” he insisted. “I understand your worries, believe me, I have a sister, but you have my word that..."

"Mine is not only brotherly concern,” Mycroft interrupted him, his voice full voice of annoyance. “Even in ancient times, when humans and Custodians lived in peace, these mixed unions were frowned upon, so much so that they never happened: there was a tacit agreement between our species about it, because the differences between us are a lot, more than you can fathom, then we aren’t happy about your relationship."

John had thought so: although Sherlock never told about what the community of the Custodians thought about them, it wasn’t hard to suppose that there was a hugh degree of hostility among them.

However, hearing it in person wasn’t pleasant. He wasn’t worried about himself (after all he had no contacts whatsoever with the Custodians), but about Sherlock, who suffered their hostility every time he came back to Yggdrasil’s garden.

"You have my word,” John continued, undeterred, “that I will not reveal to a living soul of your existence, and I will never do anything to harm Sherlock: I love him."

"Your words are noble, human, but not enough. The will of your people is more volatile than this fog, and they too easily fall prey to the lure of bad temptations."

"They’re enough for us,” John stated stubbornly, clenching his fists at his sides, “and they will be enough for you too, because I have no intention of changing them. And my name is still John."

John understood very well the fears of the Supreme Custodian, but was still surprised by his extreme rigidity and his subtle contempt; he believed he deserved at least the respect of being called by name. After all, he was officially the companion of his brother, now.

Mycroft showed a slight surprise, then sighed heavily. 

"Now I understand why Sherlock has chosen you: you are like him, more than I thought. As stubborn as a mule," he muttered.

Then Sherlock emerged from the fog and stepped in front of John in a protective gesture, rasping the ground with his hooves, spine straight, tail and ears quivering with indignation.

"You were you able to find the exit from my maze of fog,” Mycroft said, “I’m impressed, little brother."

"Go away," Sherlock growled.

"Why are you so hostile? I have only come to speak with your human, and to offer you my congratulations, that, after this night, are in order."

"No, you came to confuse him with your words, to divide us."

"If your union wobbles for so little, maybe it's not as solid as you think, Sherlock."

For a moment, John feared he would witness a physical confrontation between the two, and he moved to Sherlock's side to calm him. At the same time, Sherlock took a step back, grabbing John’s hand: they moved in unison and in perfect sync, seeking comfort in each other.

"We will not fall into your trap, Mycroft," John announced, while a small smirk spread across Sherlock's face.

"I can’t believe you opened the Portal for this," Sherlock snapped.

Mycroft admonished him with a glance, as if to say that he shouldn’t to talk about these things before the human, but Sherlock ignored him, so the Supreme Custodian gave them one last look and then walked away, without further words of farewell, and a moment after the fog dissolved completely.

"Bloody hell! Are you really capable of doing things like that?" John asked in amazement: it was the first time in his life that he witnessed an authentic magic, and he was stunned. But then, he realized that Sherlock, still stiff and trembling with rage at his side, wasn’t answering him.

"Sherlock,” he reassured, hugging him. “It's all fine, I'm not scared, and your brother's words will not make me run away."

"But now you have seen our powers."

"They’re impressive, but not even those will make me run away."

"So what will do?" Sherlock whispered, almost in despair.

"Nothing," John said, voice clipped, "nothing will ever make me run away from you. Forever, remember? I promised."

"You promised," Sherlock repeated, resting his head on John’s shoulder, but John felt that his body was still tense like a violin string, and he told himself that it was better for both of them if they did something pleasant to forget that episode.

"Come," John said, taking Sherlock by the hand, "let's go back to our house."

As soon as the door was closed behind them, John pulled Sherlock to him, ran a hand through his hair and kissed him passionately, stroking his tongue with his own, to make his intentions clear. He stepped back until Sherlock's thighs hit the table; John lifted him easily on it, bending his legs. From the way Sherlock's ears vibrated and his pupils dilated, he was very interested in his intentions.

"What do you want to do, John?"

"You will see."

John understood that, for the Custodians, sex was just a matter of mating, while he wanted to show Sherlock that they could have fun in many other ways, and he was sure that Sherlock had never even imagined what John was about to do to him.

John squeezed the base of Sherlock’s already erect penis with his left hand and bent over him, wrapping his lips around the swollen glans. 

Sherlock's reaction was explosive: he screamed and jumped so violently that his back lifted from the table, and only the pressure of John's fingers at the base of his shaft prevented him from coming instantly.

"John... what... AAAHH!"

John held him down with his other hand and continued to suck him relentlessly, now gentle, now harsh, alternating the softness of his lips, the roughness of his tongue, and even a hint of teeth. 

Sherlock’s hands darted in every direction, before finding anchor on John’s shoulders, grabbing them in a painful grip. When John being to feel Sherlock’s belly trembling spasmodically, he let him go with one last quick lick on the tip of his cock.

"No John, don’t stop," Sherlock begged, clinging to him.

"I have no intention of stopping,” John replied, his voice hoarse, as he undid his pants. “Turn around and lie down on the table."

Sherlock obeyed instantly, glancing impatiently over his shoulder, but John didn’t hurry: he grabbed him by the hips and penetrated him with an almost maddening slow movement.

"John," Sherlock sighed, impatient.

"I told you,” he panted. “I like to take my time."

He imposed a slow pace to his thrusts, enjoying the enveloping warmth of Sherlock body, stopping every time Sherlock was on the verge of orgasm, and then starting again, even more slowly, sneaking a hand between Sherlock’s legs for a fleeting stroke, until the faun banged his forehead on the table and almost sobbed in frustration. Then John lay down on Sherlock, gripped his hands, lacing their fingers together, and slammed into him with an increasingly frenetic pace, and for the first time, they came together.

Dead tired, they returned to bed, where John fell asleep almost immediately, while Sherlock watched him, curled up on his side, and soon he realized he had naturally adjusted the frequency of his breath with that of John: When his companion inhaled, he did it, too. Even the beating of their hearts was going to synchronize, he noticed, leaning two fingers on John’s pulse.

It was already starting, then.

He knew it would happen, and it was fine.

For his companion, he would accept that and more.

 

Hours later, John awoke, left Sherlock asleep in bed, and went to tend the garden, then picked some wild vegetables in the clearing: asparagus, spinach and some mushrooms, as he wanted to make an omelette for lunch.

In the afternoon, he decided to take a walk in the woods and asked Sherlock to go with him, but the Custodian replied that he wanted to stay at home.

He was probably still in a bad mood for the visit of his brother, after all.

And even John was still slightly troubled, that’s why he wanted to stretch his legs and forget what happened: maybe Mycroft just wanted to make a show to impress him, maybe it was a test, and he couldn’t tell if he passed it.

John was aware that, if forced to choose between him and his people, Sherlock would choose him without hesitation, but if he could, John would rather avoid him an absurd ban, as well as a conflict between the two species.

He couldn’t believe that creatures so ancient, wise and powerful, could also be so haughty and racist. It was true that, over centuries, humans had given them many reasons to be despised and looked at with suspicion, but every man was different and, between them, there were also good persons.

Besides, his words were sincere: he loved Sherlock with all his heart, and he would never hurt him.

Maybe Gregory could help him to smooth out the state of things: he knew that the gray faun had a close relationship with Mycroft, but he was definitely less hostile. Yes, he would have told him about it, the next time they met.

He returned to the cabin a few hours later, and Sherlock ran to him, hopping happily: he had forgotten his anger, and even John felt lighter after the long walk in the Forest.

"I have something for you," Sherlock announced, putting something in his hands: it was a necklace with a small glass bead, similar to the one John had done for Sherlock months before, and that Sherlock never took off.

"The words of other people can confuse us, and this is a symbol to remind us not to listen to them, to remind us of what unites us, what is really important: to me it’s you, John, only you."

They were beautiful words, that would have sounded good in a wedding ceremony; John put the necklace around his neck, hands trembling slightly, sight blurred by some tears of emotion, then he hugged his lover.

"And for me it's only you, Sherlock, only you."


	12. 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the winter, John needs to go down to the village to buy supplies. Initially, he plans to stay only a couple of days, but an unforeseen event forces him to change his plans. Unaware of this, Sherlock waits anxiously for him in the clearing.

One morning in April, John did an inventory of the things he had at home.

He had been very good at eking out his few resources and putting aside some seeds from the vegetable garden for the new year, but he needed some supplies anyway: bullets for the rifle, walnut oil, tea, flour, a couple of new tools to work wood, and also a new wool blanket.

His little treasure of twenty-seven gold coins had thinned a little; sure, living there and getting what he needed for his sustenance from nature, he didn’t have many expenses, and they would have been enough for several years, but what when they ended?

He would always need something down in the village, and sooner or later he would have to deal with that: maybe during spring he could work in the fields? Or sell some cheese made from Betta's milk? Because now he didn’t limp anymore, he wouldn’t have any problem in getting hired as worker.

But this meant abandoning for long periods his home, and, above all, abandoning Sherlock.

He didn’t like the idea, especially now that they had become lovers, and the faun had become so important in his life.

"It’s useless to worry about it now," he murmured in a low voice, and Sherlock lifted his face from the draughtboard (John had built one and was teaching his companion the rudiments of that game, though he was sure that in a few days the Custodian would become infinitely better than him).

"What is worrying you?"

"Nothing, nothing... I was just thinking that in a few years these coins will end, and I will need more."

"Maybe by then, humans will be come to their senses and will not use them anymore."

"Vain hope, Sherlock." John ran a hand through his hair: human economy was a strange and absurd concept in the eyes of the Custodian. 

There had never been any money in the Forest, and Sherlock didn’t understand why men had to pay with gold or silver what the land offered them for free, why they couldn’t be content to take from the woods and the fields what they needed and divided it among them, or why they didn’t help each other to build what someone wasn’t able to do, without having to resort to that "currency".

"You can’t know, John."

"No, it will never happen that men give up money, trust my words."

"But why?"

"Because it's not in our nature, Sherlock."

The Custodian was genuinely fascinated by the world of humans, but perhaps, having John as his only example, he had idealized it, and precisely for this reason it was necessary that every now and then, John would remind him of the many faults and ugliness of the human nature.

"So, maybe, in the future it will happen that I need more money, and have to go back to the village for a while to get it. In that case, we'll talk about it."

"There’s no need” Sherlock proclaimed, jumping up, “I can help you."

He dashed out of the cabin and disappeared into the woods, chased by John's calls, completely useless. 

"Who knows what came to his mind this time," John sighed, talkings to the hens that were eating insects in the lawn.

Sherlock returned in less than an hour and showed him a large, translucent stone, almost as big as his fist.

"Among men this can be used as money, right?"

John wasn’t an expert in precious gems, but it wasn’t difficult to recognize a diamond in the stone that Sherlock had brought him. Rough and not worked, of course, but still huge, and so precious that John could buy the entire region with it, if he wanted.

For a moment he was tempted to take advantage of Sherlock’s offer, he couldn’t deny it.

Selling that diamond would allow him to live like a king for the rest of his days: no more waking up at dawn, no more chopping wood, scything hay, shovelling manure, no more shortage of supplies; he could live in a castle, surrounded by comfort and luxury, with legions of minions ready to carry out his every order.

But at what price?

He looked up and met the gray and bright eyes of his lovers, the creature he loved, who was smiling at him with trust. That imaginary life wouldn’t be right for Sherlock: a mythological creature like him would never have been understood or accepted by humans.

In addition, once someone had figured out where the diamond came from, the Forest and all its inhabitants would be in danger: armies of men would come from all over the world to loot and plunder, more eager and stronger than any curse, and after their passage, there would remain nothing but dust, desolation and destruction.

He had seen it already happened with his own eyes, and he knew what men were capable of. No, he would never have risked what he had found in the Forest for all the comforts of the world, because for him it was infinitely more valuable.

He handed the diamond back to Sherlock and shook his head. "I can’t accept it, you too know that it’s a bad idea, don’t pretend you don’t understand why."

"But…"

"You don’t need to worry: the coins that I have will be enough for several years, and after… well, we’ll think about it when the time comes. Maybe, by then, I will have learned to live without money."

Sherlock rolled over the diamond in his hands.

"I did it for you."

John kissed him softly on the cheek. 

"I know. And I give up for you.”

And so he the precious stone ended to be an ornament on the mantelpiece, while Sherlock and John slid to the floor to make love.

 

A few days later, John prepared Rodrigo, took some gold coins, and got ready to go down to the village, under Sherlock’s anxious and unhappy gaze. 

John himself wasn’t happy about having to do that trip; it was the first time he returned to Fort Barts after winter, and he already imagined the wonder in eyes of the villagers, and the the words whispered behind his back. A truly delicious outlook.

"I should be back the day after tomorrow, I'll not stop at Fort Barts more longer than necessary," John promised, hugging Sherlock one last time. The Custodian rubbed his face against John’s neck and breathed slowly, as if to memorize his smell.

"I'll wait," he whispered.

When John had disappeared among the trees at the edge of the clearing, the faun called a crow and lifted his right arm, where the bird landed.

"Follow him,” he said in the ancient language of the Custodians, “and let me know if he’s in danger."

John had already gone to the village several times and had always come back unharmed.

He had always come back, he thought, pressing his lips together, it was foolish to be worried without a reason.

But this time an obscure omen was stirring at the bottom of his heart: was it only because he and John were lovers now, he felt stronger the bond with him, and consequently the parting was unbearable? Or was there more?

He returned to the cabin, curled up on the bed they shared, put his head on his crossed arms, and waited.

 

A few kilometers away from the village, John began to feel that something was wrong: normally the sounds of the village and the voice of men working in the fields near the mountains reached him, but now there was only silence; he also smelled something burning, as if all the chimneys of the village were lit despite the coming of summer and the mild temperatures. The smell of smoke didn’t reach the clearing, because the wind almost always blew from the north, descending from Mount Baker, while in the lower part of the wood it was really intense.

What if another war had broken out? He thought with his heart in his throat.

To be safe, he checked that the rifle was loaded and stayed well in the middle of the dirt road that led to the north gate of the village, casting constant glances in the surrounding meadows, fearing attacks by brigands, but no one showed up.

An armed guard stopped him at the gate, warning him not to approach and looking at him with wild eyes.

"What happen? I only came to get some supplies at the market."

"The market is suspended until further notice! Didn’t you read the public notice of the chief magistrate?"

"No, I live in the Forest and it's the first time I come back here after the winter."

"Oh, you’re..."

"Yes!” John snapped, “I'm the nutter living in the woods. Now can I pass?"

"Show me you’re not sick."

"Sick?" John repeated, without understanding.

"The spots! Let me see that you don’t have the spots, but don’t come closer, or I shoot you!"

John raised his arms in a calming gesture, took off his jacket and shirt and spinned around to show the guard that he had no spots on his body.

"If I were you, I would go back to the Forest, since you’re not been infected. Even if it’s cursed, it's better than what we're facing here."

"Dear Lord, good man, speak clearly and tell me what happened!"

"We don’t know what it is, but in the village many people have been sick for more than a month, and now the epidemic is spreading even in neighboring villages."

"I still want to get into Fort Barts," John said, putting on his clothes. "Maybe I can help."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No, I'm a kind of apothecary, but when I was a soldier I saw a lot of different diseases."

"Oh well, the more help, the better… and after all, I’m not responsible for your health."

The guard shrugged, clearly thinking that someone who lived in the cursed Forest wasn’t in his right mind, and let him pass.

Mindful of old Hazel's teaching, John cautiously wetted the handkerchief he wore around his neck with water, and tied it around his nose and mouth to avoid being contaminated by whatever was spreading around in Fort Barts.

He went to the inn of Madonna Hudson, left Rodrigo in the barn as he usually did, and tried to open the door, but he found it barred. He knocked loudly, and shortly thereafter the old innkeeper looked out the window of the upper floor.

"John!” She exclaimed, relieved. “How nice to see you; I'll open the door right now."

The woman ensured that there was no one on the street, then went down, opened the door and let him in.

"Mr. Anderson made me shut the inn out of fear of epidemic, but you weren’t here at the village when it broke out, so you’re not sick."

"Is the situation so serious?"

"Unfortunately, yes: there are sick persons in all families, especially among men of working age and teens, and now bad news are coming also from the neighboring villages. Also Sally got sick, and she is confined in a room upstairs. I was about to prepare her something to eat."

"I would like to visit her, if it’s possible."

John followed the woman into the kitchen.

"John, you don’t limp anymore!"

"Yes."

"It's wonderful. I wish the situation was better to stay here and chat with you about your life in the Forest."

John shrugged. "There’s anything to say: it was a long and monotonous winter, that's all."

John was very fond of the old innkeeper, but he couldn’t tell her about Sherlock and the Custodians.

The woman poured a generous dose of vegetable soup into a bowl, with a big slice of white bread, and knocked on the door of Sally's room. "Can you come and get the tray?"

"No…” the woman's voice was very weak. “I'm sorry."

"I'm giving her the best and most nutritious food I have, renouncing it myself, but she doesn’t improve," the old woman sighed.

"Give the tray to me," John said.

"But…"

The man put his handkerchief over his mouth again, and took the tray from her hands. "Don’t worry."

John didn’t believe that the mysterious illness was contagious: if that were the case, an elderly woman who was living under the same roof with a sick person, would be the first one to be affected, instead Madonna Hudson was in good health, unlike her helper.

Sally Donovan was very surprised to see him alive, but she wasn’t as hostile as the previous times, when John offered to visit her: the village doctor hadn’t been able to help her, and now she was more than willing to try other ways. 

The former soldier discovered that the sick persons suffered of sudden fevers that could last for days and left them exhausted (but he immediately discarded malaria, because there were no mosquitoes in the region), then they bleed and their body covered with bruises, and these must have been the famous 'spots' the guard at the gate had spoken about.

John had hoped that his experience would be useful, because in ten years of war he had seen numerous diseases and pestilences, but unfortunately he had never come across anything like that.

He recommended to Madonna Hudson a tisane of medicinal herbs to relieve Sally's fever, and then went to see the village doctor, Dr. Stamford.

Even the scholar was in trouble: he hadn’t recognized the disease yet and, as a precaution, he had suggested that the corpses were burned, and sheets and clothes boiled in water to avoid the epidemic, but the illness had spread nevertheless.

The two men decided to combine their respective knowledge in an attempt to find a cure, and began to experiment with various mixtures of herbs, syrups and ointments on voluntary patients.

Initially, John had calculated to stay only one night, but he knew immediately that he would have to stay longer, because there were many sick people and help was needed. Despite having being treated in a cruel way by his peers in the past, he couldn’t leave and pretend nothing happened. 

Perhaps once he would have done it, if he had been still the disappointed and embittered veteran who had left corpses behind him at Ecur's pass, but now he was a different man.

He only hoped that Sherlock wouldn’t worry too much about his absence.

 

The Custodian was indeed very anxious: since the afternoon of the second day he had been restless, walking in a circle around the cabin, and climbing the highest oak tree in the clearing to check the track.

He said himself that, perhaps, after all that time, John wanted to spend some time with his people, or perhaps he hadn’t found what he was looking for, and he was waiting for the supplies, so his departure had been delayed, but he felt increasingly uneasy about his absence.

Toward evening Betta approached him and headbutted him lightly on a thigh, asking to be milked, then baaed softly.

"I know that John is a trustworthy man," Sherlock snapped in the Custodian's language.

Betta baaed again.

"And I also know that he knows how to look after himself. Stop it, you are like my mother."

The Custodian spent a sleepless night turning over in their bed, and the next day he waited for John on the track from the first light of dawn.

And a bad, bad idea began to mature inside his head, an idea that strengthened when the crow he sent to watch John, returned to him with some news: the human was in the village, he was fine, he wasn’t in danger, he spoke with many people and went from house to house, hadn’t yet bought any supplies and didn’t seem willing to come back soon.

The restlessness turned into anguish and fear within Sherlock: why? Did John get tired of that life, tired of him? Were a few days away from their home and some comforts enough to change his mind?

Yet John had promised that he would come back to him: they had mated, they had become life companions, and John couldn’t have betrayed and forgotten him so quickly, Sherlock didn’t want to believe it, but...

Suddenly the words of the other Custodians, about the many flaws of humans, came back to him full force: 

_ "Promises mean nothing for humans, being liars is intrinsic in their nature." _

_ "We can’t trust that inferior species." _

_ "He's just a human." _

_ "They aren’t like us." _

_ "He is a corrupt being." _

_ "Don’t waste your time after him, Sherlock." _

_ "He's dangerous." _

_ "He will end up hurting you." _

_ "If your union wobbles for so little, it's not as solid as you think, brother." _

Sherlock shook his head and put his hands on his ears, to drive away those thoughts: no, not John, John was different, there was a reason if he hadn’t come back yet, he was sure, he had an unshakable confidence in his partner.

But now he wanted to know what was the reason why John was staying in the village, and the bad idea regained force: he had to go there and ask him what was happening.

Yet he hesitated again, perched among the branches of the oak tree: since time immemorial, no Custodian had ventured outside the border of the Forest and the protection of its Spirit, in a territory inhabited by humans.

He himself, who took the laws of his people more as suggestions than as true rules, had wandered only in the lower part of the Forest, but he had never crossed its borders, because he was aware that the outside world wasn’t a place for a creature like him.

If anyone had seen him, his people would be in danger, it was a madness just to think about it, but the more the hours passed, the more the nostalgia for John became acute, and the thought that John could never return, caused him a panic attack: he couldn’t accept the idea of not seeing him again.

Sherlock climbed down from the tree, and looked alternately towards the mountain that hid the Custodian valley and then down, toward the outside world.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, clenching his fists, and then hopped down to the village.

A hawk watched him as he disappeared into the woods, then rose in the air, heading to Yggdrasil's garden.

 

John was accompanying a woman to the mill, because her husband and children had been struck by the mysterious illness.

"We don’t have a lot of money, but maybe some white bread will help them get back to health. What do you say, doctor?"

"I'm not a doctor, I only know some medicinal herbs."

John sighed in frustration: so far all the attempts to eradicate the illness had proved unsuccessful.

At the mill, the woman asked for a sack of flour and the miller took the right amount of wheat and set the millstone in action.

A skimpy, scraggy cat rubbed at John’s ankles.

"Poor thing, how thin he is!"

"Eh, it can’t be helped,” the miller shrugged, “this cat lives eating rats and lately it's very bad for him."

"Why?"

"Because there are no more."

"No rats?"

"Not even one, is the only good news in a sea of misfortune."

It seemed impossible to John: near the wheat rats always ran in abundance, that was the reason why the millers tolerated the presence of cats in the mills.

He vaguely remembered that once Hazel told him something about the absence of rats, but right now he didn’t exactly remember her words, though suddenly they seemed important.

The cat looked at him, meowing hopefully, and John lifted him off the ground, putting him in a pocket of his wide jacket.

"Do you mind if I take him with me and feed him? I feel pity for him!"

"The cat is not mine, do as you like."

The miller handed them the sack of flour, and John loaded it on his shoulder, bringing the woman home. He said goodbye to her, and then he was called by a shopkeeper across the street.

"My father had bought some books in the capital, and among them there is one that talks about diseases: maybe it could help Dr. Stamford."

"Thank you, I will bring it to him immediately.” Then, John's eye fell on another book. “What is this?"

"Oh, it's the report of an explorer's journey in the New World."

It was a very beautiful book, full of descriptions of distant and exotic places, with even some colour illustrations. His thoughts immediately ran to Sherlock: he would have liked very much something like that.

"How much do you want for this?"

"It's a very rare and precious book: it costs two gold coins."

It was a huge expense, and John should save as much money as possible, but when he pictured in his mind Sherlock’s smile and sparkling eyes, he put his hand on the coin purse: in this way, he would also be forgiven for his prolonged absence.

After that, he went to Dr. Stamford's house to bring him the shopkeeper's book, and the cat he had in the large pocket mewled lively.

"Oh, I almost forgot about you."

"I have a weakness for cats, too," Dr. Stamford confessed. "There are leftovers in the kitchen, give them to him."

"Bread and milk?"

"No, I have some dried meat, I'm giving my bread to a poor family who lives down the street: they are all sick and I’m very sorry for them."

After having fed the cat, the two went back to work on a cure, but John was distracted and his mind kept going back to the rats that weren’t in the mill, as if that circumstance could help them in some way.

 


	13. 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock enters Fort Barts, looking for John. He will find him, but he will also find trouble.

Sherlock arrived near the village towards the sunset: he moved slowly, crouched in the high grass of the meadows, his ears stretched out to catch every suspicious noise, all his senses on the alert.

He managed to approach the armed guard at the north gate without being noticed, and waited hidden behind some bushes that the darkness offered him a better cover to enter the town. He raised his face and sniffed the air, hoping to grasp John's familiar essence, but in vain: all the smells were dominated by the acrid one of burnt wood, and, in the background, the mixed smell of many different humans.

It wouldn’t be easy to find John.

The guard was about to fall asleep on his feet, and Sherlock took advantage of it to crawl behind him and walk through the gate.

He looked around cautiously and chose a narrow, dimly lit alley to his left, moving from the back of a house to another, hoping to see or hear John, but soon he was overwhelmed by the noises and the smells that besieged him: a blacksmith was forging a horseshoe, beating the hammer incessantly on the anvil, some people shouting loudly from the window under which he was hiding, wagons and horses passing along the main road.

A large dog, trained to defend his territory, tried to jump on him, held back only by a long chain, and began to bark with ferocity, deaf to Sherlock’s calls, imploring him in the language of the Custodians to keep quiet. 

It was useless, the dog didn’t listen to him.

Sherlock ran away and hid behind some wooden crates and barrels, just before the dog's owner came out to see what was happening, a rifle in his hands.

"Does anyone want to come and steal in my house?” He shouted in the direction of the alley. “I’m waiting for you!" And, to demonstrate the welcome that he would reserved to a possible thief, he fired three shots in the air.

"Stop it, you fool old man!” Another man appeared at the window of a house on the other side of the ally, and began to scream, too. “You will end up killing someone."

"I hope so, all the thieves must die!"

The two men began to argue, screaming terrible death threats, and Sherlock sneaked away from there, absolutely terrified and already regretting his choice. What had come to his mind? He couldn’t stay there, it was too dangerous, the loud noises disoriented him, and the village was so big that finding John was impossible; besides there was a strong smell of a fungus that stagnated in the air, and it made him feel sick.

He was about to give up and go back to the Forest when a cat passed by, and carried on him John’s smell.

Sherlock called him, and the cat proved to be much friendly than the guard dog: yes, he had met a human who fit his description, who had been very good with him and had fed him. The human had stopped for a while in a house with another human of the village, but then he had gone, and the cat couldn’t tell where he was now. However, with the sunlight, the cat was willing to go looking for the human for the Custodian. 

Sherlock asked the cat if there was a sheltered and quiet place to spend the night, and the cat led him through a maze of dark alleys to an old abandoned barn on the edge of the village; as they passed near a building full of wheat, the smell of fungus was so strong that the Custodian had to hold his breath.

In the barn, the Custodian climbed the ladder that led to an attic full of old hay, lay down in the darkest corner with the cat next to him, and closed his eyes, hoping that dawn would come soon.

 

He was awakened by a thunder and the rain on the shabby wooden roof; the cat was sitting on the sill of a window, reluctant to leave the barn under that pouring rain, but suddenly he twitched his tail and called Sherlock: he hadn’t had to go out to look for the blond man, because he was passing right in front of the barn.

Sherlock rushed to the window: yes, it was John, and luckily he was alone.

"JOHN!" He shouted loudly to make himself heard above the thunderstorm.

The former soldier slowed his pace: he seemed to hear the familiar voice of Sherlock calling him, but it was absolutely impossible, it must have been only a hallucination caused by homesickness and worry, so he started walking again, but then he heard that voice again, high and scared.

"John, it's me! I'm here."

The man turned in the direction of the abandoned barn, saw Sherlock looking out the window, and his blood froze in his veins with fear.

"My God..." he murmured, and reached the building in two steps, opening the door.

As soon as he was inside, Sherlock threw his arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

"John! John! John!"

"Dammit, Sherlock! Are you gone mad? You shouldn’t be here!" John scolded him roughly, shaking him by the shoulders, but only because he was scared to death: if someone saw Sherlock, he could be killed or captured.

But then he felt that the Custodian trembled under his hands, as he was probably a thousand times more frightened than him: screaming at Sherlock was no use, so John held him to calm him down.

"Dammit, can you explain why you came here?" He asked again.

"You didn’t come back, I thought you were tired of me and I wanted... I wanted... don’t leave me, John!" Sherlock clung to his jacket, hiding his face on his neck, and John sobbed.

"God, I'm sorry to have made you worry so much, Sherlock!” He hugged him even harder and kissed him on the shoulder. “I don’t want to leave you, I'll never leave you! Forgive me, it was my fault."

After all, it was foreseeable that the Custodian would come to look for him, and John cursed himself for not thinking about it: he had left Sherlock alone in the clearing for days, it was obvious that Sherlock would have had bad thoughts about it.

"Then  why don’t you come back? Don’t you like living in the Forest anymore?"

"No, no, I swear it's not that: I wanted to come back earlier, but when I got here, I found out that a lot of people got sick, and I stayed to try to find out why and to help them."

"Oh, it's just the wheat."

"What about the wheat?"

"Didn’t you smell it?"

"No... what smell?"

"Last night I passed near a building full of wheat, and the smell there is very strong. It's a mushroom, you know, a very small one that can’t be seen with the naked eye, but if you eat it, it makes you sick: the animals know and avoid it... I thought humans knew it too."

"A mushroom... oh, a mold!" John exclaimed, clapping a hand on his forehead: of course! A mold had contaminated the wheat during the winter, and that's why the rats were no longer in the mill, because they had smelled it and ran away.

Finally, Hazel's exact words about rats came back to him: _ "If rats don’t eat it and run away, don’t trust it." _

And the wheat was turned into bread, which was given mainly to men and teens, because they carried out heavy work and needed more food: in fact the people who ate white bread were all sick. In addition, some of the wheat had been sold to neighboring villages, that's why the disease had spread, and everyone was thinking of a contagious epidemic.

"You’re awesome, Sherlock! You solved the mystery of the disease, and now that I know what it is, I can tell Dr. Stamford, and we'll have a cure in a few hours."

"And then we can leave, right?"

Sherlock was clearly very frightened by the surroundings, and couldn’t wait to return to his Forest.

John couldn’t blame him.

"Yes, yes, it will not take long. Stay hidden here and don’t move for any reason: I'll come back to you tonight, and we leave tomorrow morning before dawn." 

John sealed his promise with a kiss, and then he ran off to Dr. Stamford's house, while Sherlock climbed back in the attic, with the cat curled up in his lap, and waited.

 

Connor snapped the whip to persuade his horse to walk faster.

"The next whip will hit your back, lazy tosser," he threatened the horse with an irritated voice.

He had hoped that, with the coming of spring, in the villages of the region there would have been fairs and festivals, where his attractions would intrigue children, letting their parents spend some money to watch his conjurer's tricks or to buy his wind key toys.

Instead, that mysterious illness had spread around, and people basically didn’t leave their houses: in fact, in the last village, he had earned very little money.

Dammit, he was unlucky!

As he approached the south gate of Fort Barts, at the foot of Mount Baker, he thought that it might be convenient to change his business for a while, to put aside tin toys and tricks, repaint his wagon, and sell herbal concoctions. Mixed with coloured powders, he could sell them like miraculous medicines. 

He nodded to himself, more and more convinced of his idea: exploiting the disease to gain money was brilliant, he should have thought of it before!

Connor was a ruthless man, a trickster interested only in money, and he wouldn’t hesitate to sell his mother in exchange for a high income.

He left for a moment the reins of the horse, that kept walking by habit, and disappeared inside the wagon: he has a quite elegant dress, to pose as doctor, paint to repaint the wagon, and small bottles for the fake medicines. He only needed herbs, sugar, and spices with a strong flavour, and he could find them at Fort Barts.

After that, he would hide the wagon in an isolated place, introduce himself to the villagers as a savior carrying a miraculous cure, then he would leave before evening, before they realized his scam, and he would move to the next village.

 

Sherlock didn’t like inactivity, and even if he promised John that he wouldn’t move from his hiding place, time seemed to never pass, and he was really bored: he had overcome the shock of being in village of humans, he was a bit more used to the loud and sudden noises and the alien smells of that place, and the curiosity was back, strong and overbearing, so much that he went more and more often to look through the old wooden planks to peek at the people walking on the street.

The cat stayed with him for a while, but then someone not far away chanted, "kitty, here, kitty, kitty", in a thin voice, snapping his lips, and the cat came out from the back of the barn: a kid had brought him a fish head to eat, that the cat devoured in a few bites, then he stayed to play with the kid.

In the late afternoon, Sherlock heard a wagon approaching the barn, stopping right in front of there, so he climbed quickly in the attic, and hid behind two bales of hay, remaining perfectly still.

The barn door opened and a man took the wagon inside.

"This place is perfect," Connor said aloud, unhooking his horse, who immediately went to eat the little hay on the floor.

"First thing, I'll go get the herbs for the medicine, and then I'll repaint the wagon. If all goes as I hope, by evening I'll have some nice money."

He changed, wearing the elegant dress, threw a cloak and a hat on to shelter from the rain, and went out.

Sherlock saw him moving away towards the center of the village from a hole in the wooden boards, and when he was sure that the man wasn’t coming back soon, he went down to watch the wagon closely: it was painted in bright and vivid colours, though a little faded because of the sun and the rain, and on the sides there was a writing in red paint: “the incredible Connor and his toys”.

To tell the truth, that man didn’t seem incredible at all, but his wagon was very interesting: intrigued, Sherlock approached the horse, asking him for some information on his master, but the animal kicked nervous, interested only in eating something.

"Rude!" Sherlock proclaimed, then approached the wagon, pulling aside the curtain that closed the back: it was full of strange and bizarre objects that Sherlock had never seen and didn’t know, and he was extremely fascinated by them. 

He lifted a metal object in his hands. It looked like a large ladybug with a sort of butterfly key stuck in its back [1]: turning it with his fingers, the key turned and once released, the metallic insect moved its legs; Sherlock reloaded the spring again and placed the ladybug on the floor of the wagon, watching it scamper to the edge of it.

Obviously, he was seized by the urge to take the insect apart, to see how it worked, but then he remembered that the object didn’t belong to him, and that he didn’t have the right to do it; besides, observing the complex interweaving of springs, gears and wires under the ladybug's belly, he strongly doubted that he would be able to reassemble it correctly, and the Incredible Connor wouldn’t be happy about it.

In the wagon there were other curious objects, including many boxes with a double bottom, that left Sherlock puzzled: why a double bottom? The overall space of the container was diminished… he couldn’t understand it… humans were really weird, sometimes. 

There was also a cylinder with pictures of the inside that, if rotated, created the illusion of movement, and it was so beautiful that Sherlock would watch it for hours.

In fact he lost track of time, as it often happened to him when he was fascinated by something very interesting, and didn’t notice that at least a couple of hours had passed since the man had left the barn, and that he could come back any moment now.

Connor had managed to find what he needed for his false panacea, but when he arrived at the door of the barn where he had hidden his wagon, he heard some noises from within: someone seemed interested in his merchandise, and that someone was going to get into trouble.

He took a knife, hidden inside his boot, and approached the door: if they were just kids he would just scare them to death, but if they were adults looking for something to steal, he would give them a lesson. However, the creature sitting inside his wagon wasn’t a child, nor an adult, nor a human, with his thin animal hind legs, wispy tail and long deer's ears.

The amazement was so great that the knife escaped from Connor's hand and fell to the ground: he had heard many legends about the fairy creatures that inhabited the cursed Forest surrounding Mount Baker, but he was certain he was the first human to see one of them in person.

The greed soon overcame the wonder: he didn’t need to sell fake drugs, that creature could make him earn lot of money, enough to settle for life, because he knew exactly who would be interested in buying him: Lord Charles Augustus Magnussen, the Earl of the region.

Fortunately for him, the faun was so intent on looking in his magic cylinder, and the sound of the rain was so strong, that he didn’t hear Connor as he entered the barn and stopped in front of the back of the wagon, closing the only escape route.

"Hello!" Connor greeted him, and the creature jumped in fright, letting the cylinder fall, and flattened against the bottom of the wagon, scraping the wood with his hooves.

"No, no,” Connor wore his most reassuring barker smile, “you don’t have to be afraid of me, I don’t want to hurt you. Calm down, calm down and breathe deeply."

Sherlock looked at him with eyes full of terror: God, he had been a fool! He had let himself be discovered! What now?

"Really, there's no reason to be so scared. Look at me, I'm unarmed, I could never hurt you."

The man was saying the same things John told him when they met the first time, but Sherlock felt it wasn’t the same: despite his calm voice and friendly smile, the Incredible Connor was different from John, and Sherlock felt the danger looming over him.

"Quiet, quiet," Connor repeated, "I'm not angry with you because you've touched my stuff, if that's what you're afraid of. Do you like it?"

Sherlock nodded cautiously, "Yes," and Connor's eyes lit up.

"Oh, so you understand what I'm saying."

Sherlock nodded again, but remained flattened in a corner of the wagon, scared and wary.

"I'm happy: you know, I'm very proud of my toys, and I build them because people can have fun with them."

Connor put the bag with herbs and spices on the floor of the wagon and retrieved the ladybird, loaded it and made it walk in the direction of the faun.

"If you like it, you can keep it."

"But I don’t have what you call money to buy it."

"I don’t want money from you, consider it a gift from me, to show you that you can trust me and I'm not angry," he told him, wearing again a dazzling smile.

"Really?"

"I swear it on my mother's head.” Then, Connor pretended to be thoughtful, and snapped his fingers. “But wait, I have something much nicer than that ladybird in the wagon, I'm sure you'll love it."

He climbed on the wagon, opened a small dresser, rummaged for a while, and then pulled out a small piece of cotton soaked in something with a pungent smell.

"What is it?" Sherlock asked, still wary: the smell made him feel strange and weak.

"Inside, there is something very small but very precious, look at it yourself."

Connor brought the cloth closer to Sherlock’s face, but there was nothing there.

Sherlock had just the time to say, "I don’t understand," then the cloth was pressed on his face and the strong smell clouded his mind. Despite the weakness that numbed his limbs, he wriggled, preventing the man from holding him, scratched and bit, but with every breath in the cotton, he became weak and drowsy.

He gathered his last strength and launched himself at Connor, headbutting him in the face. The man stumbled backwards, and Sherlock stepped on him to get out of the wagon.

He managed to jump down but, dazed by the chloroform, couldn’t stand up; Connor grabbed him by his necklace and pulled until the leather strap was torn.

Sherlock screamed, but Connor pressed the cloth back on his face, until the Custodian passed out, resting motionless on the ground.

"You're not dead, you little bastard, aren’t you?” The man growled, taking the pulse on his neck. “No. Very good." 

He retrieved a sturdy hemp rope from the wagon and tied Sherlock tightly so that he couldn’t move.

"Better this way: dead you are less worthy than alive. You don’t know it, but Earl Magnussen, the lord of this region, is a collector of all sorts of exotic objects, animals, and quirks from all over the world. I’m sure he will pay me the equivalent of your weight in gold coins, so you must stay alive until we reach his castle. Then… God help you, my little fellow, because there’re  rumors that Lord Magnussen have very peculiar likings."

He lifted Sherlock onto his shoulder and threw him into the wagon, tying the rope to an iron ring, then he attacked the horse on the wagon, and left the barn.

Outside, on the back of the old barn, the kid who was playing with the cat, had been alarmed by the shouts and the commotion and, through the holes in the boards, he had seen the man load a weird animal on the wagon, talking to himself aloud all the time.

"Hey, did you see how strange that deer is?” the kid asked, petting the cat. “I have never seen one like that."

The cat suddenly jumped away: he had to warn the Custodian's human friend as soon as possible.

"Wait kitty, where are you going?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] It’s a wind key, but Sherlock obviously doesn’t know its name.


	14. 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has been kidnapped by Connor, and he's on his way to Lord Magnussen's castle, but John pursues them, with the sole purpose of saving his love.  
> Before it's too late.

John ran to Dr. Stamford, explained the origin of the disease, and now they were trying to explain it to the chief magistrate, Mr. Anderson. 

The politician paid no attention to the words of the alleged apothecary, only to those of the village doctor, but John wasn’t interested in taking credit for anything: he was on his toes because it was getting late and he promised Sherlock he would return to him.

He swayed impatiently on his heels, just waiting to be dismissed.

He was still blaming himself for having made Sherlock worried to the point he decided to come to the village, and he hoped that the incident would be resolved only with a huge fright and no other consequence, but dammit, John had been stupid!

"So, are you telling me that the disease is not contagious?"

"Exactly, Mr. Anderson: it’s caused by the molds that are on the wheat: probably they have grown this winter due to the bad conditions of the granary and the humidity, it’s enough to destroy the flour used until now, and treat the rest of the wheat with a fungicide until the mold will disappear."

"This is a great relief: your help has been precious, Dr. Stamford."

"Actually I did very little,” the scholar said. “It’s Mr. Watson who has had the intuition, and it’s him the one you should thank."

"Come on," Mr. Anderson interrupted him, “don’t be coy, doctor."

"No, I'm serious," Stamford protested, but John shook his head without being seen by the chief magistrate: really, the only thing that mattered was that people would be healed, taking credits for it was a useless waste of time. 

He just wanted to go to Sherlock, hug him hard to reassure him, and bring him back to safety in their valley the next morning: knowing that he was at Fort Barts, caused him a strong uneasiness.

It was true that no one was going to look around in that abandoned and unsteady barn, but John wouldn’t be happy until they were both safely back in their cabin.

An insistent meow drew his attention: on the windowsill of the chief magistrate’s office there was the cat he had left with Sherlock, standing on his hind legs, scratching the glass insistently.

"Ugly beast!" Mr. Anderson pulled off a shoe to throw it at the cat and drive him away, but John stopped him and ran out.

"God... did something happen to Sherlock?"

In response, the cat leapt from the windowsill, took a few steps and then turned his head to John and mewed again, nervously waving his tail: undoubtedly he wanted John to follow him.

"Let's hurry up," John said, and ran after the cat, heart in his throat and a dark omen on the bottom of his soul, while the other two men stood in the doorway looking at him.

"Mr. Watson was... talking to the cat?" Dr. Stamford asked, astonished.

"That man lives in the Cursed Forest," Anderson said. "It’s obvious that he's half mad, do you notice it only now, Dr. Stamford?"

"Yes, but the cat seemed to understand him..."

"Good God, my dear doctor, you have worked far too much in this period."

 

"Sherlock!" John shouted as he entered the barn, but his scream shattered against the old walls without getting an answer. 

"Sherlock!" He cried out again, panicked and in despair, pulling his hair.

"Where are you? Where are you? What happened?"

The tip of his shoe hit something small and round: John bent down and picked up the necklace he had given to Sherlock, that the Custodian never took off, and it was torn.

"No, god... no!"

His worst fear had come true: Sherlock had been captured. But by whom?

That barn was on the edge of the village, there were only other barns and warehouses in the surroundings, not houses, so probably there were no witnesses who could help him.

"Dammit!"

"Oh, here you are,” a kid entered the barn and lifted the cat in his arms, “where were you gone, kitty?"

"Hello you," John greeted him, kneeling in front of him. “What's your name?"

"Archie, and yours?"

"I'm John."

"Why do you make that face? Did something happen to you?" The boy asked, noticing that John was distraught.

"Yes, unfortunately something very bad happened to... a friend of mine who was waiting for me here."

"The man of the wagon? No, nothing happened to him, he just left."

"W-What man?"

"A man came and left his wagon here, then he went away for a while, I saw him through the wooden planks,” Archie answered, petting the cat, “when he came back, he caught a very odd deer that was in here, loaded it on the wagon, and said he would take it to Earl Magnussen's castle to sell it."

"No... no!"

John ran out to Madonna Hudson's inn. He had to reach that wagon and save Sherlock at any cost before other humans discovered his existence, or it would be the end. 

It wasn’t only his companion to be in danger, but all the Custodians and the Forest itself.

During his rare visits to Fort Barts, the old innkeeper had whispered to him many stories about the greed and the malice of Earl Magnussen, lord of those lands, and in light of what happened, it was alarming: the nobleman would have demanded to know where Sherlock came from, to capture other specimens and expose them in his castle.

He had to inform the Custodians about what had happened, so they would be ready, and then run to rescue Sherlock.

He would never forgive himself if something happened to him... bloody hell! It was his fault, it was all his fault, he should have brought him back to the Forest immediately!

He reached the inn and entered the stable, saddling his mule.

"Oh John!” Madonna Hudson joined him, “Dr. Stamford told me that you found a cure! I'm so relieved... but... are you going anywhere?"

"I don’t have time to explain it now, I have to go back to the Forest right now."

"This isn’t possible, dear."

"Why?"

"It’s evening by now, and the gates of the village have been closed, according to the last decree of the chief magistrate, issued after the epidemic, and will be reopened only tomorrow at dawn."

"I don’t care, I have to go!"

"The guards will never let you pass," the woman insisted, as the former soldier urged the mule out of the barn. "What's so urgent that it can’t wait for tomorrow? Oh, God have mercy!"

But John had already left, determined to leave the village in any way; however, as the innkeeper had told, the north gate was closed and bolted. 

John got out of the mule and knocked hard at the gate door.

"What do you want?"

"I have to leave immediately."

"No one enters or leaves the village after sunset, orders of the chief magistrate."

"It's an emergency, let me pass."

"No way: either you have a written permit from the authorities, or you have to comes back tomorrow morning."

"I can’t wait until tomorrow morning!" John screamed, and the guard became nervous, bringing his hand to the sword hilt.

"Why are you in such a hurry?"

The guard began to suspect that the distraught-looking man had been guilty of some crime and was trying to escape. 

John attacked him, grasping his wrist and moving his hand away from the sword, while with the other hand he punched him in the face, making him fall to the ground.

The guard tried to get up, but John was immediately on him, blocking his movements: he didn’t want to hurt him, only immobilizing him the time necessary to open the gate and leave the village. He had almost got the better of him, when something hit him on the back of his head, causing him to fall to the ground unconscious.

 

Connor drove the wagon along the dirt road that led to Earl Magnussen's castle for a while, but then the lamp oil hanging from the wagon burned out, leaving him in the darkness: in his haste to leave Forte Bats, he hadn’t remembered to buy some oil, so he was forced to move the wagon off the road and wait for the dawn, before he could move again.

The sky was still heavily cloudy, pitch dark, and even if the road didn’t run along precipices, it was too dangerous to travel during a moonless night: he could cripple the horse or break a wheel because of a stone or a hole or, worse, bump into some bandits who waited crouched in the shadows. So, no matter how anxious he was to collect his reward, he resolved to wait. 

He went into the wagon to control the creature, who was still asleep, but for safety, he pressed the rag soaked in chloroform on his face: the more he remained unconscious, the less trouble he got.

 

John felt his lids heavy like lead, and a throbbing pain radiating from the back of his skull.

"Doctor, he is recovering."

"Oh, this is a good sign."

"Fortunately, old Gurian didn’t hit him too hard."

Slowly John recognized the voices surrounding him: those of Madonna Hudson and Doctor Stamford. He opened his eyes, but immediately closed them with a grimace of pain due to the light of the candles which, although very faint, at that moment seemed blinding to him.

He was in a small room in the inn, so he hadn’t been able to leave the village.

"I have to... I have to go," he mumbled.

"It would be better if you wait some more, lying down," Dr. Stamford insisted.

"What happened to me?" John asked, bringing a hand to the back of his head.

"A man from the village saw you attacking the soldier in the guardhouse," said Madonna Hudson, "and hit you with a cane. I arrived shortly after: I had followed you because I knew that it wouldn’t end well, and luckily I was able to clarify the misunderstanding. Then, with the help of the doctor, I brought you here."

"Dammit!” Despite the medical advice, John sat up and put his feet off the bed.

“How much time have I lost?"

"It's dawn."

"No... oh no..."

"John, why don’t you explain what happened? Maybe we can help you."

"Thank you, but no, you can’t do anything, and I've already lost too much time, I have to go."

He dressed, jumped on Rodrigo, reached the north gate of the village, now open, and spurred his mule towards the Forest: even his animal seemed to have understood that something was wrong, because he trotted much faster than his usual slow and rhythmic pace.

"Gregory! Gregory! Someone! Help! I need help!" He shouted as soon as he reached the first spruces. Finally he heard a rustle in the woods above him and looked up, but it wasn’t Gregory, it was Sherlock's brother.

"Mycroft! Something terrible has happened."

"Sherlock has been captured, right?" The Supreme Custodian asked, looking unperturbed.

"Yes: the man who took him are taking Sherlock to Earl Magnussen, the lord of these lands. We have to go and save him."

Mycroft, however, didn’t move, and this made John furious: "Did you hear what I said?"

"A son of the Forest has been taken prisoner by humans: there is no doubt that the Forest will react and will have its revenge."

"R-revenge?" John stammered: he could hardly believe his ears.

"Of course, revenge for the greed and malice of humans."

"I don’t care about your philosophical crap now, it’s not important!” John cried, raising his arms to the sky. “Do you understand or not, that your brother has been kidnapped and he is in great danger?

"The Forest will punish humans for the sacrilege they’ve done," Mycroft went on, as if he hadn’t heard John’s words, “but Sherlock broke one of our most important rules, existing since the time when the alliance between the Custodians and humans broke, that is, never cross the borders of our world to enter the corrupt and contaminated world of humans. What he did goes against our traditions."

"Trad... to hell with your traditions! Don’t you care about what could happen to him? Or what will happen to your people if Lord Magnussen comes here with his army?"

"My brother knew what he was doing and was aware of the dangers that lie beyond the border of the forest. He knew, but despite this, he decided to give up the protection that our world offers him, and to go to the village anyway. Now he will have to face the consequences of his decision.” Mycroft narrowed his eyes, “I told Sherlock that your union wouldn’t bring anything good: if he had never known you, now he wouldn’t be in danger. As for Lord Magnussen, the Forest knows how to receive him as he deserves, if he will dare to come here. Neither he, nor any other human creature can do anything against its powers, and consequently against us."

John shook his head in disbelief, and a grimace of disgust spread across his face.

"You are... you are really incredible. You despise us more than anything else for our nature, which is flawed and full of faults, I admit it, but if you care more about rules and traditions than the life of one of your people, if you are really that cruel, then you aren’t better than us. And yes, I know that Sherlock has come down to the village because of me, I know that if he hadn’t met me, now he wouldn’t be in danger. The thought never stops to torment me, I can’t think of anything else! But now I will go to save him: if you want to come with me you are welcome, otherwise stay here and babble about the revenge of the spirit of the Forest, but this is not what your brother needs now."

"We Custodians obey to ancient laws, I don’t pretend that a human like you understand it. Besides, we can’t reveal ourselves to humans, it would be the end for our Community," concluded the Supreme Custodian, before leaving, without looking back.

John didn’t wait a second longer, he returned to Rodrigo, pulled the reins and directed him along the dusty road that led to Lord Magnussen's castle: who had kidnapped Sherlock had much advantage over him, and John had no idea how to save Sherlock, but he didn’t care: Sherlock was the most important person in his life, he would do anything to save him.

Or he would die in the attempt.

 

Meantime, in the Forest, in the heart of Yggdrasil’s garden, the Custodians had gathered in a circle around the Portal, whose runes now shone with a sinister violet light, and recited ancient litanies handed down from generation to generation, releasing their magic and becoming executors of the will of the spirit of that mysterious and arcane place.

A human had defied the fury of the Forest, taking one of his creatures with deception; now many humans would have paid for this act of protervice, as had happened several times in the past centuries to the fools who had tried to conquer the Forest and make it their own: from the Portal, woes would be poured on humans until the wrath of the Forest had subsided.

And after talking with John, also Mycroft returned to the garden and joined the Custodians circle, chanting the ancient curses.

 

Madonna Hudson had just breathed a sigh of relief, because Sally had finally recovered from the illness that had struck her, and she thought that now that the cure had been found, life in the village would be resumed like before. 

She was only a little worried about Mr. Watson and hoped he would tell her the reason for his hasty departure the next time he got off at Fort Barts.

Something hit the glass of the kitchen window, like a small stone, then another, and another. 

Puzzled, the woman approached the window, then stepped back with a small "uh" of disgust, when she saw a large locust slam against the glass. Other insects had leaned on the wooden shutters and began to chirp loudly.

_ "Locusts in this season? And so many? How strange," _ the old woman said to herself in astonishment. 

She went to check that the other windows of the inn were well closed to avoid being invaded by the insects, when an alarmed shout coming from the street attracted her attention; she opened the door carefully, shooing the locusts stuck on the doorframe, and covered her mouth with one hand, horrified: from the high mountains north of the village, came a huge swarm of insects, moving rapidly toward it in a cloud so dense and compact to obscure the sun.

Madonna Turner, her neighbor, appeared on the threshold of the house, brandishing a broom, with which swept out three large rats.

"Rats!” She shouted, “the courtyard behind my house is full of them."

Other rodents, coming from the Forest, too, ran down the street and dispersed in the alleys, creeping into the cracks of the walls or climbing up to the roofs, ready to nibble and eat everything. One of them tried to slip between the feet of the old innkeeper, who kicked it away and shut the door.

Was that the reason why John was in such a hurry to get back to the Forest? Did he know what was happening and had tried to avert it?

A thunder made her wince, and a moment later the pale sun darkened, covered with black clouds, and big hailstones struck the region.

One thing was certain, the woman thought, as she ran to lock all the shutters: the Forest was enraged with them for some reason, just as it had happened on the occasion of the Great Plague and the flood.

 

Sherlock remained unconscious all night and most of the morning, when Connor set off again; he slept so much that the man occasionally entered the wagon to make sure he was still alive, worried to lose money, if he would die.

The Custodian woke up in the middle of the morning, vomiting several times because of the chloroform, and Connor heard him kicking and shouting inside the wagon, but because he was tied and couldn’t escape, the man didn’t worry: that creature could scream as long as he wanted, nobody could hear him.

But then the Custodian spoke a few words in a dark and unknown language, and the human shivered with fear at hearing that ancestral litany. Immediately his horse stopped in the middle of the dusty road, refusing to advance a single step, and not the blasphemies, nor the whips, nor the stones that Connor threw at him, were enough to make the horse move: somehow the creature had asked the horse to stop, and he had obeyed.

"Do you think you're smart? But I’m smarter than you."

He took a few firecrackers from his pocket, that he used to liven up the village fairs, lit a strip with the lighter and let it fall between the legs of the horse: the sudden explosions woke the animal from the trance and, terrified by the loud noise, the poor beast galloped down the road that led to Lord Magnussen's castle.

Sherlock didn’t give up; he continued to scream at the top of his lungs, and other animals tried to slow down the wagon: owls and hawks glided from the sky attacking Connor, lynx cats, foxes and even squirrels darted between the paws of the horse, making him nervous, but unfortunately Connor's firecrackers fed the primordial fear that wild animals had for firearms and none of them could stop the wagon.

"Shut up," Connor shouted, banging his fist against the wall of the wagon, "or I swear on my mother's head that you will suffer the consequences. I can’t kill you, but I can make your trip extremely unpleasant."

Sherlock didn’t allow himself to be intimidated by the threat, and again let out his cry for help; some bushes along the slope on the side of the road bent and a big brown bear burst into the road, leaping on the horse, that rose up on its hind legs to hit the bear with hooves.

The wagon was in danger of tipping over and Connor grabbed the firearm he kept with him, jumped down and walked a few feet away, firing at the bear with an old harquebus, then with the musket, that he had to reload several times before killing it.

At that point, however, it was too late for his horse, who collapsed on the ground because of the wounds inflicted by the bear and didn’t get up again, but miraculously the wagon was still intact.

"Looks like luck is on my side, which means misfortune is on your side, you damned monster."

Connor pulled back the curtain that closed the wagon: the creature had untied with his teeth the knot of the rope that held him tied to the metal ring, and jumped out, trampling Connor, but he managed to jump only a few steps before the bulk of the ropes made him stumble.

Sherlock fell to the ground and Connor was immediately on him: he crushed him to the ground with all his weight, punching and slapping him.

"I don’t care if you arrive at your destination with all your bone broken, including your spine! In fact, maybe you would give me less problems, if you’re paralyzed, what do you say?"

But Sherlock didn’t stop fighting and rebelling, and eventually Connor sprayed the chloroform in his face directly from the bottle he always had in his pocket, then gagged him so he couldn’t ask the animals for help anymore.

"Because of you, I lost a lot of time, you bag of fleas! Lord Magnussen will have to pay me more than your weight in gold, with all the trouble you're causing me, ugly beast!" Connor snarled, making sure the ropes were tight around the creature, before throwing it back into the wagon.

He removed the carcass of the horse from the wagon and ran in a meadow not far from the road, where he had seen cattle grazing: he stole two oxen and hooked them to the wagon, to reach his destination.

 

Rodrigo trotted as long as he could, but he wasn’t a racing animal and even if John was concerned about Sherlock's fate, he didn’t want to blow his mule's heart out of excessive strain, so he pulled the reins and set a slower pace, while he wiped the sweat from the animal's fur with a handkerchief. Rodrigo slowed down, but didn’t stop, continuing to advance steadily along the road with the stubbornness typical of his species.

"Thank you, my friend," John told him, stroking his neck: he also counted on the fact that Sherlock's kidnapper's horse was more delicate than a mule and needed to rest from time to time. Besides, the horse had to drag the weight of the wagon, so John hoped to reach them before it was too late.

At one point, the road passed through a little wood, and here John came across the macabre sight of the dead bear and the horse disemboweled by its claws: all around the traces of the wheels of a wagon were very evident.

John dismounted from the mule and knelt on the ground, trying to understand what had happened: the bear must have attacked the horse, but somehow the wagon was able to move again, thanks to some oxen, judging by their paw prints.

However, he felt an ounce of relief in the dark sea of his despair: he knew that Sherlock was talking to the animals and it was he who asked the bear to attack the wagon, so at least he was still alive. 

Also, to his surprise, he discovered that the bear and the horse were still warm, so Sherlock's kidnapper had less advantage over him than John had calculated. Too much, still too much for his tastes, but the situation was less desperate than expected.

Rodrigo, who had been drinking in a stream that ran down the road, approached John, touching his back with his snout.

"You're right,” John said getting up, “let's get Sherlock back."


	15. 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is prisoner of the perverse and cruel Lord Magnussen, who wants to discover where the Custodians live, to enslave and expose them as his property.  
> Meanwhile, John studies how to assault the castle. He is ready to die to save Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little warning: in this chapter there's Magnussen acting like... well, Magnussen, that means in a very creepy and disturbing way.   
> Nothing explicit, more hints than anything else, but proceed with caution.

The soldiers defending the drawbridge of the castle of Earl Magnussen weren’t willing to let Connor pass, nor to announce his arrival to the Earl.

"Our Lord is a busy man and have lot of commitments, he has no time to listen to every tramp knocking on his door."

"He is a famous collector of rare items: I have something with me that he has never seen and that he will certainly want to buy."

"You all say the same thing," replied the soldier, who was beginning to get annoyed at his insistence, but Connor didn’t give up.

"If you don’t let me pass, I will be forced to sell my item elsewhere. Later, the news of the existence of something so incredible will spread quickly, so what shall I say to Lord Magnussen when he asks me why I didn’t sell it to him? I will have to tell the truth..."

"Let him pass," said the second guard to the first one. "If he says the truth, we'll be in trouble, you know."

"What if he lies?"

"Our Lord will have him thrown in the dungeons."

"Alright then. Pray that you didn’t waste our time," the soldier said to Connor, then nodded to a man on the tower and the drawbridge was lowered.

Connor was led into an inner courtyard of the manor, where he waited patiently for someone to show up. He thought he would be received by a valet or the secretary of the Earl, but the nobleman in person came, accompanied by his personal escort.

Connor performed an exaggerated bow, but the Earl stopped him with a gesture of the hand that oozed annoyance.

"I hope for you that you brought me something truly unique,” he said, quietly but subtly threatening. “I don’t like at all to be bothered for nothing.”

"I assure you it's worth it, Your Highness," Connor replied, rubbing his hands together. He approached the wagon to pull the back curtain aside, but Magnussen shook his head and snapped his lips, and one of his soldiers barred Connor’s way with his spear.

"I prefer my men to do it: you will forgive me, but prudence is what keeps me alive and healthy, to the great displeasure of my enemies."

"My Lord, I could never..." Connor started, but then shut up, under the stern gaze of the nobleman, and bowed his head.

The soldier carefully pulled the curtain aside and jumped back in surprise at the sight of the creature curled up on the floor.

"In the name of God, what is that?"

At that point, Lord Magnussen approached and looked inside the wagon: only a slight ripple of the lips betrayed his emotions, but otherwise his face remained unperturbed. He studied the sleeping creature for a long time, then turned back to Connor, who looked at him expectantly.

"Where did you find it?"

"In Fort Barts, the village near Mount Baker."

The last village in the region, the one that stood at the foot of the so-called Cursed Forest: interesting.

"Does he speak?"

"Oh yes: he speaks and understands our language perfectly, but he also speaks a dark and mysterious language that somehow influences the animals."

The nobleman returned to contemplate the Custodian, and Connor came closer to him.

"Isn’t it the most extraordinary creature you have ever laid eyes on, Your Highness? It will be the the feather in the cap of your already vast collection, and the whole Kingdom will envy you."

"How much do you want for him?"

"I would say at least the weight of the creature in gold coins."

"Ambitious."

"For a creature of such beauty, my request is just sensible!" The barker protested.

"I could agree on the price... however,” Lord Magnussen turned indolently towards one of the soldiers and moved his hand in the air. “Tobias, would you kindly remind us what is the punishment for the theft of cattle?"

"Sure, Your Highness: five days in prison without water or food and a hundred whip strokes."

The Earl stepped in front of the wagon, caressing the back of one of the oxen, pensive.

"I'm afraid it's not an adequate deterrent for thieves, since we have the evidence of a theft under our eyes. I have just decided that, from now on, the punishment will be beheading."

"I don’t-I don’t understand…” Connor stammered, suddenly nervous, “what does this mean? We were talking about my reward."

"The brand on the thigh of these oxen is that of a farm near here, do you want to deny it? And I don’t think you're the owner, Mr. Incredible Connor."

"No, I didn’t steal them, I just borrowed them because a bear killed my horse."

"What a dull excuse."

"It's not an excuse, it's the truth: that creature spoke in his tongue, and ordered a bear to kill my horse. I needed another animal to be able to get here, and I took these oxen, but I will give them back to their owner, I swear! I did it only to bring you the creature, Your Highness!"

"Here, this is already more imaginative."

"No, no, I'm not lying!"

"Perhaps not, but the law allows no exceptions: if I did it for you, I should do it for everyone else, and soon anarchy would be unleashed," the nobleman concluded in a soft voice.

The Earl nodded briefly to the guards, who lifted Connor and carried him away, while the man wiggled and begged for mercy, then turned to three other soldiers and pointed to Sherlock: "Take him to the Chamber of Wonders, and chain him to the wall."

 

Far away, in Yggdrasil’s garden, the Custodians broke the circle, and a melodic murmur rose in the still air.

"The punishment has been unleashed."

"Woes have fallen on foolish human beings."

"The Forest has had its revenge."

"The natural order of things has been restored."

"Mycroft,” interjected one of the Custodians, seeing that the runes were still active, “it's time to close the Portal."

"No, we will leave it open."

"For how long?"

"For as long as it will be necessary."

"This is strongly irregular."

"So I decided."

Irene shook her head, understanding the intentions of the Supreme Custodian.

"Sherlock is far away, well beyond the borders of the Forest: it can no longer help him or offer protection, yours is only a useless and desperate move, and you know that it costs us a lot of effort to keep the Portal open with our magical power."

"Irene!" Gregory admonished her.

"If I have to make such an effort, I would like to understand why, and I don’t think I'm the only one," she insisted.

"It’s not a futile effort, we do it to help a member of our community,” the gray faun replied. “You all underestimate Sherlock: even if most of the time he is disinterested in his Custodian duties, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to use the Portal; his magic is powerful and he can do better than all of us put together, even if he is far from home right now."

He knew that Mycroft was in a delicate position, crushed between his duties as Supreme Custodian, protector of the Community, and the brotherly feelings towards Sherlock, so he decided to take a step forward and loudly support that decision: after all, he also had a certain weight within the Community.

"It seems impossible to me. Irene is right, brotherly love obscures Mycroft's judgment," said another Custodian.

"We’re talking about one of us, we have to try every way to save him, and this is the only one we have, without exposing ourselves to the outside world," Gregory replied.

"As much as it costs me to admit it,” Molly intervened. “I agree with the others: even if Sherlock is able to use the Portal to ask for the help of the Forest, the effort would be enormous and his body would be worn out to the point that he wouldn’t be able to move. Then how could he come back here? He's alone, he can’t do it."

"We will keep the Portal open," decreed Mycroft, putting an end to the discussion.

Gregory stayed there, to check that the order was executed, while Mycroft moved away from the garden to a peak that dominated the whole valley below. 

"And Sherlock is not alone," Mycroft murmured in a low voice.

A lizard climbed a stone and raised his head towards him, as if waiting for something.

Mycroft touched her head with the tip of a finger and said, "Be my messenger, help those two", then he raised his arm and called three huge eagles. The lizard climbed on the back of one of them, and then the birds of prey took flight towards the castle of Lord Magnussen, driven by a favorable wind, suddenly appeared.

 

A sweet and sad song gently wrapped Sherlock's conscience, making him slowly re-emerge from the coils of the dreamless sleep induced by the chloroform; the Custodian fluctuated in a darkness that was becoming less and less dense and oppressive, until he awakened completely. 

That soft and mysterious melody whispered to the soul, and sang of longing, pain, nostalgia,  and of the lost hope of coming back home.

Sherlock opened his eyes to a room without windows, lit by many candles: he was chained to the wall by one arm, lying on a very soft carpet, but it was of no comfort to him.

The room around him was full of strange objects of all sorts and shapes, but also of cages where were locked up animals that he had never seen before: a large bird with colorful feathers, that croaked to itself in a rough and confused language that remembered that of the humans, a bear-like animal, with a light gray fur and big black nose, that was dozing on a plant with long, thin leaves, a fox with huges ears walking back and forth in its cage.

Finally Sherlock set his eyes on the person who was singing: a half-human, half-fish creature with a silver fish tail, immersed in a large glass bowl full of water, whose upper part was closed by a heavy iron grate.

"Are you a siren?" Sherlock asked in the language of the Custodians. Their peoples had never met in person, but they knew each other because of the stories told by migratory birds, that acted as messengers between mountains and oceans.

"Yes. How did you end up re here, Custodian of the Forest?"

"Because I didn’t listen to John's words."

"Who is John?"

"A human."

"Oh... was your previous owner? Did he sell you?"

"No, John is my life companion."

The siren shook her long blond hair, that swayed slowly in the water. "This is impossible: humans don’t treat us as their equal, for them we are only slaves or weird objects to watch and sell."

"John is different from the other humans!” Sherlock defended him vehemently, “he's special, he's good, and he loves me!"

"Really? I don’t think he holds you dear very much, since you're here."

"What happened is just my fault,” Sherlock sighed. “Where are we?"

"In hell" said the fox with huge ears.

"We are prisoners in the castle of Lord Magnussen. Give up hope, Custodian: from now on, this will be your new home, until you die," added the colorful bird.

"No!” Sherlock shook his head, “I will manage to escape and I will come back to John: he is waiting for me."

The woman looked at him with maternal compassion.

"When I arrived here, I had the same, vain hope, but I lost it almost immediately.” She lowered her eyes, and her tears blended with water, “you will lose hope too, when you will meet the Earl."

"No, never!" Sherlock grabbed the chain that held him tied to the wall, and pulled with all his might, but didn’t get any results.

"See? It’s useless,” said the siren. “The earlier you will lose hope of leaving this place, the better it will be for you. If you don’t, you'll end up going crazy: many animals had died in this chamber, because they couldn’t accept their fate."

 

Later (Sherlock couldn’t tell how much time had passed, because of the absence of sunlight in the chamber) a richly dressed man, with a tray in his hand, came in. 

He was accompanied by two soldiers, but a nod of his head was enough to get them away.

Sherlock stared at him as he approached, backing against the wall and showing his teeth, but the other man wasn’t impressed at all. He placed the tray on the ground and poured a glass of water from a carafe.

"You'll be thirsty, drink. That brute who captured you didn’t treat you very well, but things can change. Whether for the better or worse, it depends exclusively on you."

He held the glass to his lips, and Sherlock sniffed at him suspiciously.

"It's just water. For now..." the man added indolently.

Sherlock wouldn’t want to drink, but he was very thirsty, he was almost dehydrated, and eventually he accepted it.

"If you tell me what you eat, I could bring some food, later. My name is Charles Augustus Magnussen, Earl of the Kingdom of Northumberland and Lord of this region. What's your name?"

Sherlock threw the glass to the ground, where it shattered, and looked at him, pressing his lips together in a thin, hostile line, but the human didn’t flinch.

"I have a very old manuscript, older than the Ancient Chronicles, that talks about your species," Magnussen went on. "There are only a few handwritten notes on the sidelines of the manuscript, because you are really elusive creatures, and the proof of your existence has been lost due to the passage of time. Nevertheless, the humans knew you, in ancient times: you are intelligent, you live in the Cursed Forest, and you reject any contact with the outside world."

Suddenly Magnussen grabbed Sherlock’s free arm, and pulled him to himself; Sherlock tried to wriggle, kick and bite, but Magnussen kept himself out of his reach.

"It's such a pity that you live hidden, you're so beautiful.”

To Sherlock’s horror, Magnussen put his lips on the back of his hand, while a fanatic light lit his eyes. “The whole world should admire you: your place is in a room like this."

"Living creatures aren’t objects to expose," Sherlock hissed, taking his hand away from Magnussen's grasp, and rubbing it on the carpet to erase the nauseating feeling of his lips, and the disgusting smell of that human.

"When someone has so much wealth as me, everything is an object, whether it breathes or not."

Was that the real, terrible nature of human beings, the one that his brother and even John had tried to show him?

John... Sherlock felt a sharp pang of nostalgia for his companion and their simple life in the clearing, and that made him felt even more lonely and desperate.

"Are there many like you?" Magnussen asked, but Sherlock didn’t answer: he wouldn’t say a word about his people.

The man sighed, bored, as if he were dealing with a capricious child. 

"I'm afraid you don’t understand your situation well, yet, so I'll try to be clearer: you'll tell me everything I want to know, and you'll do everything I want, whether you like it or not. You can just choose if you will do it on your own will, which I strongly suggest you, or if I have to be the one to make you talk. But I warn you that you may find the experience very unpleasant, right, sweetheart?" Magnussen turned to the bowl of the siren, and gave her a slimy and sick smile, to which the creature didn’t answer, floating in the water, eyes closed, and the most resigned expression on her face.

 

John finally arrived in sight of Lord Magnussen's castle, and analyzed the situation from a grove on the east side of the manor.

The thought of Sherlock, locked up inside the castle, in the hands of cruel and sick men, caused violent waves of rage inside him, and his hand tightened rhythmically around the hilt of the dagger.

But there were several armed guards: assaulting the castle alone in broad daylight, would be just a suicide, and wouldn’t help Sherlock. It was only that thought that held him back from throwing himself at the soldiers: he had to take Sherlock to safety, and he couldn’t do it if he died.

He began to elaborate a plan, that contemplated to wait for darkness to try to sneak into the castle, exploiting the sewers that vented in the surrounding moat. When he was a soldier, he had assaulted a fortified castle of the Reichenbach Kingdom, that was very similar to that of Lord Magnussen, and he knew that all the fortresses were built with similar criteria.

He could do it.

He had to do it.

For Sherlock.

A lizard climbed on the trunk of the tree behind which John was hidden, very close to his hand, and watched him. That details caught his attention: it was very strange, lizards weren’t usually so bold, but the small reptile looked at him calmly, as if she knew him and his intentions.

"Did the Custodians send you?" John ventured.

The reptile obviously didn’t answer, but raised and lowered her head in a nod.

"Then please, go into the castle, find Sherlock, and tell him he must not be afraid: I'm here, I'm coming, and I'll save him from this ugly place. He just has to resist a little longer."

The lizard dashed away, down from the trunk, and disappeared in the tall grass towards the castle.

 

Magnussen took a container from the pocket of his dressing gown, opened it, and a pungent odour spreaded in the air.

"It's your last chance to talk on your own will,” he warned, pulling a few long needles out of a metal case, “and I'd really prefer you to do it: I don’t know the exact dosage of this drug for a faun and I don’t know what collateral effects could cause you. It would be better not to find out, in my opinion."

Sherlock jerked forward as much as the chain allowed him, and tried to hit Magnussen with a kick, but the man drew back in time.

"No? Pity. Your hostile silence will not help you at all: with this drug, you will speak, you will tell me everything about your people, including how I can subjugate you, but you may not survive with experience."

He dipped the needle into the drug and approached Sherlock, pricking him on one arm.

 

John walked cautiously along the border of the grove, continuing to observe the castle, in search of the best place to enter: sunset was still far away and the wait became more and more unnerving: he wonder if the lizard had already found Sherlock and had delivered his message, and he hoped that the idea of not being alone, could bring a little comfort to his love: Sherlock had lived terrible moments and was probably scared to death.

He couldn’t shake off the words full of contempt that Mycroft had thrown to him: if they had never met... if they hadn’t been together...

It was true: if they had not met, Sherlock would never have come down to Fort Barts to look for him, and none of this would have happened. The faun would have continued to live happily and safely in his perfect world, far from the corruption and the dangers of human civilization. 

What had happened was his fault, and now John had to fix it. 

And if he succeeded in saving him, then he would have to make other decisions for Sherlock's sake, so that nothing bad could happen to him in the future.

 

Sherlock staggered on his hind legs: his head was spinning, and where the needle had penetrated under the skin, the flesh burned as if it had caught fire; he collapsed to the ground and vomited the little water he had drunk.

"I warned you," Magnussen said, standing next to him, watching him impassively. "You should have to talk spontaneously. Now tell me, where does your people live?"

Sherlock lay down on his side, breathing heavily: he was scared, tired, with no strength or hope anymore, and his mind was blurred. Magnussen kept repeating his questions again and again, without pause, with an imperturbable, almost hypnotic cadence.

Sherlock didn’t want to answer, he would have killed himself rather than give away the Forest and his people to that monster, but the drug Magnussen had given him, overrode his will, and it was acting: it was as if an invisible force was trying to get the words out of his throat.

Another sting flared his left side, causing him to scream, and Magnussen leaned over him, whispering in his ear: "You can’t resist any longer: surrender, and tell me the way to get to the place where your people live. Then, it will all be over and we can devote ourselves to more enjoyable activities." 

Magnussen ran his lascivious hands along Sherlock’s hips, and this caused him to vomit again.

At least, Sherlock had the satisfaction of dirtying Magnussen’s dressing gown, and seeing the man tossing it away in disgust.

"Annoying, but useless: you'll talk and tell me everything I want to know."

Sherlock closed his eyes, trying desperately to block the sound of Magnussen's voice, and in a last, desperate attempt to defend himself, he sheltered all his thoughts in an imaginary Forest, which existed only in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The animals in the Chamber of Wonders are a macaw, a koala and a fennec.


	16. 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowing that John is coming to save him, Sherlock decides to help him, using the Custodians magic.

The little lizard had no difficulty in crossing the drawbridge, still lowered after the passage of Connor's wagon, without being seen by the two guards who kept their gaze fixed in front of them. 

She entered the courtyard of the castle, hiding behind boxes, barrels and columns, and tested the air with her tongue, looking for the smell of the prisoner: she had important message to deliver, and she had to find the Custodian.

She snuck under the doors, took advantage of the cracks in the walls, and finally picked up Sherlock’s smell and followed it to the Chamber of Wonders.

She slipped behind the human, under the carpet on which Sherlock was lying down, reached the ear of the Custodian, and spoke to him.

 

Sherlock and Mycroft were locked in the cabin in the clearing, crouched under the table, while a storm was raging outside: the rain fell heavily on the windows, the lightnings brightened the room, the thunders covered their voices, and the wind blew so strongly that it made the old wood creak.

It seemed that everything was about to be swept away by the fury of the Nature.

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked around, then turned to his brother: "We aren’t really in the Forest, right?"

"No Sherlock, this is the inside of your mind. You found shelter in this imaginary cabin, and I'm not surprised, frankly."

"You're not here for real, either."

"No."

"This is almost a relief."

"Is it really time to joke, little brother?"

"No, you're right, it's not. I don’t know how long I will resist: that man has injected me something, and now I feel obliged to answer his questions. I will yield, I will speak, and it will be the end for all of us."

Mycroft squeezed his hand. "You still have a chance to save yourself."

"How?"

"You know it."

"I'm tired and confused."

"I know, but you have to concentrate all the same."

Sherlock forced himself to think: why had his mind shown him the Forest and his house? To make him understand what he was about to lose?

Perhaps, but it wasn’t the only reason: his mind had shown this to him because he was a Custodian of the Forest, and that was where his strength lay, where he would find the weapons to fight Magnussen... and if the drugs made him talk, and made it impossible to resist, then he would speak, but not in human language. He would speak in the ancient language of the Custodians, that the Earl would never understand.

 

"Tell me how to subjugate your people," Lord Magnussen repeated once more, and this time a feeble moan left Sherlock's lips.

"Very well," the man said smugly, "you just have to talk a little louder, so I can understand."

Sherlock raised his voice, but the words coming out of his lips made no sense, and sounded alien and incomprehensible, quite different from any known language.

"No!” Magnussen hissed angrily, grabbing his head, “you have to speak my language, dammit!"

 

"It works," said the Mycroft in the recesses of his mind.

"For now, but if he will still use the drugs..."

"Then you must escape."

"I can’t use the magic of the Custodians alone, if the Portal is closed."

"And who tells you it is? You should have more trust in your people, Sherlock."

Suddenly, a lizard materialized under the table.

"The Supreme Custodian Mycroft sent me here, to tell you that the Portal has been left open for you: use it as you want. Besides, John, your human companion, is outside the castle and awaits for the best time to assault it, and come to save you, even if he is alone. You must help him, Custodian, if you want to help yourself."

"John... John is here..." Sherlock whispered incredulously.

Somehow John had found him, he hadn’t left him alone.

As he promised.

Sherlock closed his eyes: he knew that he was able to evoke the magic of the Forest, even if he was outside its borders, though he had never done it before. 

Using magic at that distance from the Forest and in his condition, could be fatal, he was aware of it, but Sherlock didn’t hesitate, because John was ready to face alone a castle full of armed soldiers to save him; and perhaps it was too late to save himself, but he would protect his companion until the last moment, like John was protecting him.

Sherlock rested his free hand on the carpet and used it to get up from the floor, looking at Magnussen with icy, hate-filled eyes, and the tone of his words changed completely.

The Earl didn’t catch the sense of what the Custodian was chanting, but the new litany had a harsh and threatening inflection and, for the first time since he was in his presence, Magnussen thought he had underestimated that creature: maybe he was stronger than his delicate features made believe, maybe it was a bad idea to provoke his anger, maybe the faun possessed powers that went beyond his understanding and that were extremely dangerous.

The human backed in fear, while the other animals locked in their cages, stirred restlessly at the sound of those words, and even the siren ran to hide among the rocks on the bottom of her tank, covering her and crying, deeply scared.

 

Gregory had stayed close to the Portal all the time: he was certain that the other Custodians would obey Mycroft's will, and no one would dare to close it.

But he hoped to see something happen, anything: every minute of inactivity was a bad sign, it meant that Sherlock couldn’t recall the magic of the Forest, and Gregory could only hope that Sherlock was incapacitated in some way, and not already dead.

Mycroft and the other members of the community thought that Sherlock was the only responsible for the choice he had made, and that situation was only his fault, but Gregory didn’t quite agree.

Initially he believed that the union between a human and a Custodian was something heretical and wrong, too, but then he had observed them, he had known John better, and part of his mental barriers had fallen. 

Unfortunately, only his own had. The other Custodians remained granitically on their positions, and they had voiced their opinion aloud whenever Sherlock returned to Yggdrasil's garden; by doing that, they had fueled Sherlock’s doubts and fears.

If they had supported him, if they hadn’t denigrated the human in every possible way, perhaps Sherlock wouldn’t have been so anxious when John had gone down to the village, and wouldn’t have followed him.

Instead they didn’t behave like a community to Sherlock, but like enemies, and in the next Council meeting, Gregory would ask to them to recognize their mistakes.

Finally, a blinding light came from the bottom of the Portal, and a moment later a tall column of fog darted upward, bending like a wave, and then it aimed towards the valley.

Sherlock had summoned the maze of fog, one of the most powerful and frightening spells of the Custodians.

"He will do it, isn’t it, Mycroft?" Gregory asked, addressing the Supreme Custodian, hidden in the shadow of Yggdrasil, but Mycroft didn’t answer.

 

John had dozed off slightly, leaning against the trunk of a tree: he had to gather all his strength and be lucid, if at sunset he wanted to have the slightest hope of saving Sherlock.

Rodrigo brayed loudly, waking him up suddenly, and John ran to cover his snout.

"Shut up, damn you! They will discover us!"

From the castle, came excited voices and the sound of a horn, so John ran to see, and opened his mouth in amazement: along the road, a wall of white fog was moving fast and relentless towards the manor. The fog was so dense it gave the impression of being solid, and it was like the one used by Mycroft during their first meeting.

Along the border, the fog thickened and swirled on itself, creating shapes of terrible creatures: two-headed monsters, huge tigers, winged dragons, horned demons, deformed giants, and frightening trolls, that scared to death the soldiers of the castle.

From the huge, white fog cloud, a portion broke away and advanced towards him, but John didn’t flee nor was afraid, unlike the men at the castle: he knew that the fog came from the Forest, evoked by the Custodians or perhaps by Sherlock, he had already seen and he knew what it was, so there was no reason to fear it.

The fog enveloped him, hiding him from the sight of his enemies and, feeling protected, he decided not to wait any longer, and he walked towards the castle.

His enemies, to tell the truth, were so terrified by the magical fog that they didn’t care about him: most of them, at the sight of the monstrous creatures, had thrown swords, shields and spears to the ground, and they fled precipitously in every direction.

Others, after having raised the alarm with the horn, ran aimlessly from one side of the manor to the other; others had locked up in some room to invoke God’s mercy; the soldiers on the chemin de ronde of the curtain wall, disoriented by the thick fog, stumbled and fell down. [1]

Lord Magnussen, having heard the clamor coming from the corridors, let the faun down momentarily, and got up to go and check what was happening.

"It was you, right? I will make you to pay for whatever has happened!"

Angrily, he stung Sherlock again with a drugged needle.

Before passing out, a single word escaped from the Custodian's lips.

"John ..."

 

John reached the drawbridge, finding it unguarded, picked up a sword that someone had left behind, and entered the castle.

In the main courtyard a soldier was crouched behind a some barrels, whining; John came out of the fog that protected him and grabbed him from behind, pointing the sword to his throat.

"I will only ask you once: where is he?"

"W-who?" The soldier stammered, terrified.

"Don’t test my patience: a creature has been taken prisoner and taken to your Earl, tell me where he is or..." John pressed the blade of the sword against the soldier's jugular.

"The Chamber of Wonders in the west wing, second floo-ah!"

An arrow shot from a crossbow blocked his words, and the soldier's body sagged heavily in John's arms.

John followed the arrow's trajectory with his eyes, met the gaze of Lord Magnussen himself, and had just enough time to raise his sword to avoid being hit in turn. 

He took advantage of the time Magnussen needed to reload the crossbow to throw himself at him with a fierce cry and the sword raised in the air; the Earl raised the weapon to defend himself, but John's fury was such that the crossbow fell from his hand, shattering.

Then, the nobleman unsheathed his sword and engaged duel with John.

"Take me to Sherlock!" John ordered, throwing himself on him.

"No, he belongs to me, and I don’t usually let thieves steal my belongings without fighting back."

"Sherlock is a living creature, not an object, and belongs to no one but himself, much less to a monster like you."

"He is not human, and because of that, he has no rights according to my laws."

A downward blow from John hissed near the Earl’s right arm, tearing fabric and skin.

"Look at me! Do you think I care about your laws?"

"You have just committed lèse-majesté: there is no place on this earth where you and that creature can hide from my anger, I will find you everywhere, and I will execute both of you, so surrender right now, and spare you the torment." [2]

It was Magnussen's turn to cut John on the cheek, but the former soldier counterattacked skillfully, causing him to retreat. 

"Never!"

The Earl was a formidable swordsman, but John was supported by the desire to save the person he loved most in the world, and not even Magnussen could anything against his determination: after some violent blows, John disarmed him, making the sword fly away.

The nobleman escaped on the stairs leading to the chemin de ronde, and John pursued him for some steps, but then he remembered that he wasn’t there for that. The most important thing wasn’t revenge, but to find Sherlock and take him away from that place as soon as possible, so he went back to look for the chamber the soldier had told him.

 

"Guards! Guards, to me!" Shouted Lord Magnussen, but no one appeared before him: the cowards had left the castle en masse at the sight of the fog. 

Pusillanimous, inept, useless and superstitious rabble! At the end of that day he would have hanged them all for high treason.

But first, he had to get rid of that annoying man and prevent him from stealing his faun: in the north turret there were guns and pistols, and no matter how much he fair-haired man was skilled with the sword, he couldn’t stop bullets.

The chemin de ronde, however, was immersed in the thickest fog, and Magnussen couldn’t see anything: it was a disorienting sensation that caused him vertigo, and he didn’t struggle to believe that many soldiers had fallen down, unable to understand where they were.

Dragging his feet on the ground, he cautiously stepped up to touch the low crenellated parapet that protected the passage: visible or not, if he held one hand on the low wall, he would always know where he was, and would reach the turret without problems.

He had almost crossed half of the walk, when he felt a blow of air behind him, and a cold wind caressed his nape for a moment, making his hair stand on end.

"Who's there?" He asked, whirling around.

Nobody replied, but shortly afterwards he felt the same sensation, again behind him.

"I order you to show your face, coward!" He shouted, turning around, but he immediately realized the mistake he made: because of his nervousness, he had left his grip on the wall and now he couldn’t figure out which way he was walking, whether forward or backward.

Magnussen groped his hands, searching for the wall, but then, to his ear came a very strange sound, like the steps of a child running, not far from him and fast approaching.

_ \- TIP TIP TIP TIP TIP - _

"I'm armed!” He bluffed, “and I'll cut your throat, whoever you are."

Finally the Earl’s left hand bumped into the cold stone of the wall, but his relief lasted very little, for a sharp razor-like beak emerged from the white blanket of fog and tore at his flesh.

"AH! Damned beast, I curse you!" He yelped, clutching his injured limb to his chest.

An eagle, there was a huge eagle there with him, moving fast and sure despite the fog, clearly in league with that faun.

Underestimating him had been a serious mistake.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" He threatened, on the verge of hysteria.

He heard a mighty beating of wings behind him, while on his left, the quickly ticking of the raptor's claws on the stone resumed: the eagles were more than one.

The first one struck him with his claws on the back of his neck, causing him to stagger, and when the man turned to defend himself, it was the turn of a second eagle to attack him and cut off an ear with his beak.

In panic and pain, the man whirled his arms in an attempt to chase away the birds of prey; he walked back and his thighs hit the low wall: he stopped for a moment, then a third bird lunged at him, hitting him in the chest with all his strength, and Lord Magnussen fell into the void with a cry, crashing to the ground in the inner courtyard of his castle, dead.

 

"Sherlock! Sherlock, where are you?"

John had reached the second floor of the castle and opened every door, searching for his love.

"Sherlock, please, answer me!"

"He's here!" A woman's voice shouted from behind a thick, finely inlaid briar door. The door was locked, but John grabbed an ax hanging from the wall and smashed it.

"You have to hurry up, he’s very sick. I tried to sing to wake him up, but he doesn’t hear me anymore," the siren told him as soon as John managed to enter the room. 

The man barely registered the strange half-woman, half-fish creature in the big glass bowl, or the other marvels of the room, and rushed towards Sherlock, lying on the ground, unconscious.

With the help of the ax he freed Sherlock from the chain, and picked him up in his arms: his pulse and his breathing were very weak.

"God Sherlock, what did that monster do to you?" John whispered, stroking his face.

Next to Sherlock's body, there was the case with the needles and the drug, and John understood immediately: unfortunately he wasn’t familiar with that particular kind of drug, and didn’t know what to do, or if there were any herbs that could counteract its effects.

However, if he didn’t have the knowledge and the tools to help Sherlock, he knew who could do it.

"Please, hold on. I promise you'll get better soon."

He lifted him off the ground and turned to leave, but the siren slammed hard her fist on the glass of her tank.

"Help us too: if you're as good as Sherlock said, you will not leave us in this prison."

John looked around, and saw the other exotic creatures, unhappy and suffering in their cages, and nodded decisively: he tore away the hinges of the grate that closed the siren's tank and helped her out, making her sit on a chair and covering her with a tapestry, so that she wasn’t cold, then he opened the cages of the other animals and freed them.

"This is enough for us,” said the woman, “when my tail will be completely dry, it will turn into human legs and we will leave: I will take care of the animals."

"I will leave you two horses tied to a wagon and also a firearm to defend yourself: do you know how to use it?"

"Yes. Thank you John, Sherlock was right about you."

The man shook his head and looked at her miserably.

"No: Sherlock is in this situation because of me. I hurt the most important person in my life, I'm not good, I'm not better than these people."

He picked up Sherlock and left the room, while the siren shook his head.

"Foolish human, you can’t see beyond your nose: you're the only reason that allowed Sherlock to hold on."

John prepared the wagon for the siren, then chose the six strongest horses in the stable, attached them to a smaller, lighter wagon, and left that deadly place.

The fog had vanished, but the manor was still empty, and no living soul had approached it from the neighboring village: probably everyone was still too terrified of that strange magic, and had locked up inside the houses.

Rodrigo was waiting for him in the meadow just outside the castle, but John shook his head, stroking his head: "I thank you for everything you did for me, but now I need to bring Sherlock back to the Forest as quickly as possible. You understand it, don’t you? You can come along the road with your pace, and return to Madonna Hudson's inn: I am sure she will take care of you."

John flipped the reins and the horses started to gallop.

The mule watched them until they disappeared along the way. He would obey John's orders, but before he had to do something important: he went back into the castle, approached a door ajar and opened it with his snout. The word "treasury", written on the wood, didn’t say anything to him, but he knew very well what contained the tinkling leather bag that he picked up from the ground: the humans held those yellow metal disks in great consideration, and they would have been the right compensation for what his poor master and Sherlock had suffered.

 

John tried to wake up Sherlock several times during the trip, and to slide a few drops of water between his lips, but it was useless: the Custodian didn’t react to anything.

When the horses began to show signs of weariness, other wild horses approached the wagon, surely called by the other Custodians, who were waiting for Sherlock, to bring him back to the Forest, the pure and uncontaminated place where he belonged, among his people that would take care of him, and where no one would hurt him anymore.

Unlike him, he thought as he urged the new horses to a gallop.

Thanks to this handover, John reached the edge of the Forest at the foot of Mount Baker before it was completely dark, dismounted from the wagon holding Sherlock in his arms, and ran into the Forest, knowing that every second was crucial to save his life.

He had to step aside, because Mycroft was right: it was his fault if Sherlock had come down to the village, and had been captured and drugged. 

John had to make sure that what had happened, was not repeated in the future, so he had to leave and stay away from Sherlock, so the faun would no longer have been in danger.

Humans were too cruel and mean, and were good only to do harm and destroy; he and Sherlock belonged to two distant and different worlds, perhaps irreconcilable and, for his sake, John had to let him go.

Sherlock had to forget about him, and return to the life he led before he knew John, because that life would kept him safe from the wickedness and corruption of men.

The idea to let him go was heartbreaking, but John loved him more than anything else in the world, and Sherlock's life and safety were more important than his own happiness.

Yes, he was well aware that, far from Sherlock and the idyllic life of clearing, he wouldn’t be happy again, but it was the right thing to do.

He stepped on the track in the wood he had learned to know well and, just at the beginning of the first rise, he saw three motionless figures standing out against the full moon rising from the mountains. Among them there was neither Gregory nor Mycroft.

The Custodians didn’t speak to him, nor took a step toward him. They just waited, cold and distant, like untouchable deities.

John approached them with a slow pace, and the death in his heart, but before deposing Sherlock in their arms, he held him one last time, placing a kiss on his forehead.

"Forgive me if you can, my love, I never wanted to hurt you."

He gave Sherlock to one of them, and the three Custodes moved away without uttering a word; John watched them until they disappeared among the thick trees, then collapsed to his knees and wept silently tears with his face hidden in his hands.

Finally, he returned to the valley, untied the horses from the reins and sent them free.

Then, without a place to return, he decided to go to the inn of Madonna Hudson in Fort Barts.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemin_de_ronde): a raised protected walkway behind a castle battlement.
> 
> [2] From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9): it’s the crime against the Crown or its aristocracy.


	17. 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feeling guilty for what happened to Sherlock, John leaves him with his people and returns to live in Fort Barts, but he misses him and can't stop thinking about him. Until one day...

"They are here."

"Quickly, quickly, let them pass."

"The son of the Forest has returned to his home."

The three Custodians brought Sherlock near the Portal, that was closed now, and had returned to the appearance of a harmless pond.

They slowly laid him down on the surface of the water, where the motionless body floated placidly, then Yggdrasil bent a branch towards him.

A dark purple flower, similar to a star, suddenly blossomed, then withered, dropping its petals on the face of the sleeping Custodian, and in its place grew a blue and oblong fruit with a smooth peel, that riped within minutes, and fell into Mycroft’s hands.

"Take him to his cave."

Molly took the fruit from the hands of the Supreme Custodian. "I'll handle that."

 

Sherlock opened his eyes with a great effort: he was lying in a field of high, soft and fragrant grass, that was swaying slowly in the wind.

_ "Where am I?"  _ The Custodian asked without opening his mouth.

_ "You're safe now,"  _ answered a familiar voice. It had no shape or gender, and seemed to float in the air around him.

_ "I'm still in my mind, though." _

To his right, a strip of grass bent, as if pressed by an invisible hand, a long path appeared, and, in the distance, Sherlock caught a glimpse of Mount Baker's peak.

_ "You're safe,"  _  the voice repeated,  _ "follow the path and you'll come home." _

_ "Yggdrasil?" _

_ "Yes, it’s me." _

Feeling protected, Sherlock walked along the path traced by the Great Tree of Life. 

It was summer in that imaginary place, there weren’t any clouds in the sky, the lizards were warming on the rocks, indifferent to his passage.

Everything was calm and peaceful, and the loudest sounds that could be heard were the soft chirps of the birds hidden in the leaves of some distant tree, but after a while Sherlock stopped, stretching his palms towards the sun.

_ "What's up?" _

_ "Something’s wrong." _

_ "Don’t stop now, you're almost home." _

_ "But something is missing, something important, and I'm cold." _

Despite the sun shining over his head, Sherlock felt a horrendous feeling of coldness and loneliness within himself.

_ "I miss…" _

 

Molly had made a puree with the Fruit of Healing, had squeezed its juice inside Sherlock's mouth, and she was waiting patiently for it to take effect.

Sherlock's eyelashes flickered quickly and his eyes opened, but Molly wasn’t sure he was already conscious: it was too early.

Sherlock opened his mouth, but no sound came out, and Molly put a hand on his shoulder.

"You're still very weak, it's a miracle that you're alive, you don’t have to force yourself to do anything. Just try to eat the Fruit of Healing."

She held the blue puree close to his mouth, but Sherlock just looked around, as if he didn’t know where he was.

"You're home, safe, you're in your cave. Come on, make an effort and eat the fruit, you'll get better soon."

Sherlock obeyed, but only raising his head from the bed was a huge effort for him, and he immediately fell asleep again.

In his sleep, he mumbled some confused words.

"John... John is missing..."

Molly bowed her head to her chest and sighed resignedly.

After a few hours, when the sun had already set over the mountains, Gregory entered the cave.

"How is he?"

"He's still unconscious, he opens his eyes only for a few moments, and then goes back to sleep again. It will take time for it to heal, humans must have done something horrible to him."

"The eagles and the lizard sent by Mycroft to the castle are back, and they are telling what happened. You can go and listen to them if you want, I'll stay here with Sherlock."

"Thank you."

Gregory noticed that Molly had activated the crystals of the cave that generated heat, but it was too hot for his tastes.

"Why did you activate the crystals?"

"When he regains consciousness he keeps complaining that he's cold."

"Despite the Fruit of Healing?"

Molly shrugged. 

"I don’t know what to say, I don’t understand."

Sherlock stirred, turning on his side, and called John again.

"It’s not his body that is cold, but his heart," said Gregory, sitting down next to the sleeping faun.

"How can Sherlock still want him, after all he has suffered in the world of humans?"

"Because they mated, they’re companions for life, and they love each other."

"You talk as if Sherlock's feelings were reciprocated by the human."

"But they are."

"No: he abandoned him to return to live among his peers."

"The eagles and the lizards aren’t the only animals in the garden at the moment. Also a cat has come from the human village, asking to be heard. If you want to listen to him, the cat will explain to you what happened, and why John Watson didn’t come back to the clearing."

"All right," she agreed. After all, being stubbornly anchored on her position without knowing the facts, was a symptom of great dullness: she wouldn’t be a good Custodian if she refused to listen a witness.

 

Although John had left the town only the day before, now Fort Barts had a ghostly appearance. Yet he was convinced that, once the disease brought by the wheat mold had been eradicated, the streets of the village would be full of people again, and the usual daily routine would be resumed: shopkeepers shouting to sell the goods, children on the street chasing a ball or a wooden ring, and ladies gathering around to chat.

Instead this time no guard stopped him at the north gate, although it was already dark, and there was no living soul on the streets, as if all the inhabitants had fled.

He knocked on the door of the inn, and Madonna Hudson welcomed him with a hug full of relief.

"John, I'm so happy to see you again! Oh, what did you do to your face?"

Where Lord Magnussen had wounded him with his sword, there was a nasty streak of dried blood, but John didn’t mind.

"It's nothing."

"I don’t think so. Come, come, I'll mend you."

The old woman sat him down, took a basin of warm water and passed a damp cloth over his face.

"You know, when yesterday your animals came here, I feared something serious happened to you."

"My animals?"

During his absence, Betta, the rooster and the hens had descended from the cabin to the inn of Madonna Hudson, where they stopped, and the man took it as the umpteenth sign that the Custodians and the Forest no longer wanted to have him among them.

"I'm sorry for the trouble they caused you."

"I had free milk and eggs, I wouldn’t call it a trouble. But... can you explain to me what happened to you, John? You ran away so suddenly..."

John shook his head without saying anything; the old woman understood that he didn’t want to talk and that, therefore, she shouldn’t insist, even if John seemed very sad.

"Do you think you’ll stay a few days?"

"Much more, I can’t go back to the Forest, but I will not stop here."

"And where will you go?"

John shrugged.

"In a stable, outdoors... I don’t care."

"Nonsense," the innkeeper said, putting her hands on her hips. "With all the rats that are still around, I will not let you sleep in the street."

"Rats?"

Madonna Hudson offered him a cup of tea, and told him about the terrible woes that had hit the village the day before, shortly after his departure.

"The locusts disappeared within a few hours, but unfortunately they were enough to cause serious damage to the crops, along with the hail, and people are still afraid: that's why they stays closed in their houses."

That was the reason why Fort Barts seemed a ghost town.

But now that Sherlock had returned among his people, the wrath of the Forest had probably subsided, and life would resume as before.

For everyone, except for him, far away from the person he loved.

"Don’t worry about it, Madonna Hudson: I'm sure the rats will disappear soon."

John thanked her for tea and got up to leave, but she didn’t want to let him go.

"Sally has decided to spend her convalescence at Mr. Anderson's house: you know, those two... so I doubt she will come back to work after being healed, and I have no one else to help me in the kitchen and with the rooms. Would you like to do it, John?"

It was a good proposal, and so John stayed in the inn.

The following morning Rodrigo returned to the village with his slow and rhythmic pace; John led him to the trough, when he noticed the bag the animal held between his teeth.

"What have you got there? Let me see."

Obediently, the mule dropped the bag in his master's hands, and John, with his utmost amazement, counted no less than fifty gold coins in it.

"But... but what...?"

The mule headbutted him weakly on his shoulder, as if to tell him to accept that gift without asking too many questions, and discovered the big teeth in the smile of someone who knew better; then he drank, and headed to the stable of the inn, where Betta was: the two animals raised their snout and seemed to silently talk to each other.

Until a few days ago, the money would have made him euphoric, because it would have meant no more worrying about leaving his cabin to earn some, and not having to leave Sherlock...

But now everything had changed, he would never see his love again, and he didn’t care about that money anymore. 

In any case, he hid them in a hole of the stable, because maybe the gentle innkeeper or some other poor unfortunate sod might need it.

Within a few hours, the news that Earl Magnussen and many soldiers of the castle had died, killed by a frightful magic, reached the village, and that did nothing but strengthen the ancestral terror of the Cursed Forest.

 

Waiting for the appointment of the new Earl, the King of Northumberland sent a temporary regent from the capital; afterwards, the travels of diplomats and noblemen intensified, and this meant a great deal of work for the two inns and Fort Barts market.

Thanks to this, the village was able to recover, at least in part, from the disasters that had come down on it in recent times.

John helped Madonna Hudson, flawlessly carrying out his tasks, but without any enthusiasm.

Several times, in the evening, the patrons of the inn invited him to sit with them to drink wine and play cards, but he always declined the offer, politely excused himself, and went out, taking refuge in the stable to brush his animals, or in the attic to stay alone. 

He spent every free moment in the meadows just outside the village, hidden from the sight of everyone by the tall grass, looking towards the Forest.

Who knows how Sherlock was doing? Was he healed? What was he doing? Did he still think about him sometimes? No... probably, after the terrible experience, he regretted having met John and was trying to forget him. Was he happy? Was he bored? Did he reconcile with Mycroft and the other Custodians? John hoped so.

He had decided to let Sherlock go for his good, and to avoid him further unnecessary dangers, but it wasn’t easy, and John always thought of him, his bright eyes, his thousand questions, the joy with which he called John’s name, his soft mouth, and the enveloping warmth of his body.

John still had in his travel bag the necklace Sherlock had lost during the scuffle with Connor and the book he had bought for him there at the village, and he never parted from the necklace Sherlock had forged for him, and he would never do: he would ask to be buried with that jewel on him, when the time had come.

Every so often he had pushed himself to the edge of the wood, but he didn’t think he was worthy to cross that invisible threshold anymore, and walk under the branches of the spruces, then he returned to the village with his head bowed, more and more silent and depressed.

 

On a cold morning, at the beginning of May, John was sitting on the ground, still wet with dew, watching the clouds moving past the mountain peaks; he heard the rustle of someone moving in the grass, approaching him, but he didn’t pay attention, and ignored it.

"I could have been a bear, and in that case I would have already torn you apart: why humans haven’t yet died out goes beyond my comprehension," said a voice full of annoyance and disapproval coming from behind him.

John jumped up and found himself in front of Mycroft.

"What are you doing here?” John asked, glancing nervously at the gate of Fort Barts. “Someone could see you."

"No, everyone is busy with something else, right now, nobody will come," said Mycroft, indolently.

"Oh... did you use your magic?"

"Precisely.” 

Mycroft made his eyes wander over John's shoulder. 

“And so this is the village of Saint Bartholomew. Chaotic and terrible," the Custodian observed critically.

"Haven’t you... haven’t you ever been here before?"

"Since I was born I have never crossed the borders of the Forest."

He emphasized on every word to mark the importance of the event.

"Why are you here, then? Did something happen to Sherlock? Please,” John whispered, his hands clasped, “tell me he's fine, I just want to know this, I don’t ask anything more, after what happened."

"We had him eat a Fruit of Healing of Yggdrasil, and he slowly recovered, both from the drug used by that human, and from the effort of using magic so far from home. And I really thought it would be best for him and for all of us, to keep him away from you and the world of humans forever."

John listened in silence, didn’t reply, and didn’t defend himself, because the Supreme Custodian was right: meeting him had brought Sherlock close to death, so it was better that way.

As for him, the news that Sherlock had healed and was fine, had to be enough.

"However, of course Sherlock doesn’t agree with me,” Mycroft looked away from the village, and seemed reluctant to continue. “Immediately after recovering, and as soon as he was able to move, he locked himself in your cabin, although I told him that you wouldn’t come back, and now he stubbornly refuses to get out of there, to eat or drink or to speak to anyone, and is even more unfriendly and moody than before."

"But he will end up getting sick again!” John cried, “You're his brother, you have to convince him to eat for his sake!"

"Do you think I didn’t tell him?” Mycroft sighed, the frustration evident in his voice. “But you know how stubborn my brother can be: he wants you to come back to him, and he will not end this stupid protest until he gets what he wants. Besides... it seems that this time he has an ally on his side."

"An ally?"

"Gregory has clearly and repeatedly expressed his opinion to me: he thinks I was too harsh with you, and that I blamed you for things you hadn’t done. He also says that it was me, along with the other Custodians, that insinuated too many doubts in Sherlock about your relationship, doubts that had led him to leave the Forest to find out what was going on. And actually you didn’t want to abandon him, you were loyal to him, but you stayed here moved by noble reasons, I must admit it."

"You don’t have to apologise."

"I'm not doing it," Mycroft replied, offended. "I'm just telling you that if you think that you can’t set foot in the Forest because of me or the other Custodians, you're wrong: we will not attack you."

John wanted to go back to Sherlock and to the simple life they led in the clearing more than anything else in the world, because the life in the village and the empty talk of people were unbearable to him, but after what happened to Sherlock, he didn’t believe he have the right to do it, and he didn’t know if the spirit of the Forest would accept him again.

"This, I can’t tell you," said Mycroft, deducing his thoughts. “As Sherlock has told you on many occasions, the Forest acts in mysterious ways, and we don’t always understand its will. Maybe it will be merciful and forgive you, maybe it will kill you at the first opportunity: it’s up to you to find out, if you wish. As I told you, the Custodians will not hinder you or be hostile to you, you have my word. Anyway, now Sherlock is your complete responsibility and if you are a man of honor, as you claim to be, I think you should try to come back."

"What do you mean?"

Mycroft turned his back to him without replying, and walked towards the woods, disappearing behind the trees.

If he could, John would have followed him immediately, without telling anyone, but leaving the poor Madonna Hudson to work alone, would have been a gesture of enormous ingratitude on his part, after that the innkeeper had been so good with him. So he ran to the main square of the village, where there was always a certain Billy Wiggins, a young man who lived hand to mouth, because he had never found a stable job.

Wiggins was happy to work for Madonna Hudson, having also a roof over his head and a real job at the inn, and the woman had nothing to say about the change of helper.

"I'm sorry to always do everything so suddenly," John said.

"Don’t even say that: to tell the truth, I wondered how long you would resist here in the village, John. I see that you’re always looking elsewhere, and can’t wait to get back there, so what are you waiting for?"

John picked up his few things, gathered the animals and greeted the old woman one last time before setting off.

"John," she called him back, "I don’t know what happened to you, but I'm sure everything will be fine."

"I would like to have your faith."

"You are a good-hearted man, you don’t have to worry."

John walked into the Forest, subjecting himself to its judgment, but after a while his animals stopped and looked at him seriously. 

It was strange, usually they always preceded him along the track, walking much faster than him.

"I understand: it's a test that I have to face alone, isn’t it? I got it, that's right."

He kept on walking and passed the first rise, but when he reached the point where the track passed by the gorge, he had to jump back precipitously due to a sudden rockslide; he didn’t give up or let himself be intimidated, he sought another passage through the woods and overcame that dangerous point, but the pitfalls weren’t finished: he risked to fall and break a leg, putting his foot in a hidden hole in the ground, other rocks rolled down from the wood, and seemed to aim directly at him, forcing him to hastily take shelter behind the trunk of a tree.

It seemed that the Forest was threatening him, but John, instead of letting himself be discouraged and giving up, walked as quickly as possible, regardless of the fatigue and the dangers: he wanted to get to Sherlock as soon as possible and nothing would stop him.

Even a bear blocked his way, standing in the middle of the path on his hind legs, his mouth wide open in a menacing growl, and his long claws slicing through the air.

John slowly pulled the musket from his shoulder and pointed it at the animal, ready to light the fuse.

"Move from my path, because I don’t go back!" He cried in a firm and proud voice.

The bear faked an attack, advancing towards him, but John didn’t move, and finally the animal raised his face in the air, as if he had heard a call and, as he had appeared, disappeared among the thick trees.

John stopped for a moment to catch his breath at the foot of the great waterfall, and looked up: the most difficult and dangerous stretch of the path was that, as it climbed on the right side of the waterfall.

If the Forest wanted kill him, that was the best place.

The water seemed to fall from above with a more menacing roar than usual, and John climbed up at a slower pace, because he was exhausted, and he didn’t want to take unnecessary risks now that he was so close to home.

He was almost halfway up the rise, when he put his foot on an unsteady rock; he didn’t fall in the waterfall only because he managed to cling to some tufts of grass. His feet whirled for long, terrifying moments in the void, then he found a support on solid rocks and managed to hoist himself to safety.

"I don’t go back," he repeated again.

He breathed deeply with his forehead resting on his hands, still clutching the grass, then he stood up cautiously and began to climb again, ready to face other pitfalls, but nothing else happened to him, and John almost couldn’t believe it.

Finally he understood the meaning of the words engraved on the monolith: the first time he had set foot in the Forest, he had the tired heart of a dying man, who had nothing to lose. But then everything changed, he was reborn and had found himself again, a new self, a better and more tenacious self, than the hollow man he had been in the past.

And that new self had made a promise to Sherlock.

He came in sight of the clearing: the little cabin stood out like a sweet mirage against the clear sky, a blessing, a safe harbor after a night spent at the mercy of the storm.

John thew on the ground the heavy bag he carried on his shoulder, rushing to their home, screaming the name of his love.

The door swung open, Sherlock appeared in the doorway and, for a moment, he was paralyzed with amazement and excitement, then rushed headlong into John's arms, so crazy with happiness that he forgot the human language and whispered feverishly something in the language of the Custodians.

John didn’t interrupt him, closed his eyes and hugged him tightly, lifting him off the ground and swirling around, until he collapsed into the grass with Sherlock in his arms.

"Forgive me," Sherlock whispered after a while, his face against John’s chest.

John grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him gently, so he could look at his face: Sherlock was serious.

"What are you apologizing for, Sherlock? God... you didn’t do anything wrong, it's me the one who should apologize to you, a thousand time and a thousand more."

Sherlock raised a hand and gently stroked the scar on John's cheek. 

"If I had stayed here, waiting for you, as you asked me, nothing would have happened to you."

"This is nothing, just a scratch" minimized John.

"No, it's not true: you could have been killed or captured by the soldiers of the castle."

"To save you I would have done this and more."

"So... aren’t you angry with me?" Sherlock asked, confused.

"No!” John denied strongly, “why should I be?"

The Custodian looked away. 

"You entrusted me to my people and left, you didn’t come back here, to our house. I thought you had enough of me."

John hugged him again, stroking his soft curls.

"Absolutely not! If I didn’t come back it was because I felt too guilty about what happened to you. It was my fault: I made you worry with my absence, forcing you to go down to the village. If you had never known me, you would never have experienced such a terrible pain, so I thought you'd be better without me. I was the one who thought that you didn’t want to see me again."

"No John, I could never be happy without you, never."

Hearing those words, so passionate and sincere, John felt extremely foolish: he had left Sherlock with his people for his good, but he hadn’t considered how much Sherlock would have suffered without him.

"Neither do I,” John confessed, “down in the village I felt so alone without you. Even if it's full of people, for me it was like there was no one, and I was thinking only about you."

"So... will you stay?"

"If you still want me."

"Always John, I will always want you."

They moved at the same moment, kissing almost desperately until they were out of breath, as they rolled in the flower-scented grass. John took Sherlock’s thin face between his hands and stroked his head, but then he felt a strange lump under his fingers and started.

"What's wrong?” he asked, carefully tasting Sherlock’s head. “Did you hit your head? Are you hurt?"

"No," Sherlock muttered, looking away; he looked almost embarrassed.

"So what are these lumps?"

"I’m just growing antlers."

"Ah, thank goodness, I was worried."

"No, you don’t have to, it's normal for us: it happens when we mate."

"Oh..." John blushed slightly: he now understood Mycroft's words about Sherlock being his full responsibility now.

"Don’t humans change somehow after mating?"

"Not externally, but when we meet someone special, someone really unique and special, then we want to spend our life with them, and to protect them at all costs.” John took Sherlock’s hands and brought them to his lips. “And this is the promise that I do to you, Sherlock: I will always be there for you, I will do anything to protect you, this place that made us meet, what we have built here, and our love."

"I want the same things, John."

"So, first of all you have to eat, drink, and get healthy again, all right?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied, resting his head on John’s chest again, listening to the heartbeat of his life companion, while John hugged him sweetly, making Sherlock forget the atrocious experience lived at the castle of Earl Magnussen and the loneliness of the last days.

John's voice was uncertain and trembling when he spoke again.

"I missed you so much, it was horrible to be without you."

"Don’t think about John, now you're back, you're home."

"Yes, I am."

Sherlock rubbed his face on John’s neck, finally happy, and the cold loneliness that had gripped his heart since his healing, disappeared forever.


	18. 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happy and hopeful epilogue for our boys.

In the following days John had a lot of work to do: the vegetable garden had been neglected, and the wild boars had taken the opportunity to ravage and eat everything they had found.

With the help of Rodrigo (who came up to the clearing together with the other animals shortly after John), he had plowed the land and planted the seeds again, because some crops were irrecoverable and had to start all over again, even though it was late spring: surely the harvest wouldn’t have been as rich as the year before, and that winter he should have been very careful to consume the food.

The prospect, however, didn’t frighten him too much: since he had returned to live there with Sherlock, he had begun to hope again, and to look to the future positively, even though the same remained uncertain.

The spirit of the Forest had accepted him again, hadn’t punished him for what had happened to Sherlock, and now everything was in his hands: living or dying depended solely on his desire to live, and with Sherlock at his side, he was optimistic.

He stopped for a moment hoeing the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, raising his gaze to the blue sky, where the wind lifted some dandelion seeds, like a light rain of cotton.

"Are you alright, John?" Sherlock demanded, handing him the water goatskin.

"I am, love." John kissed him on the forehead and then went back to work, while Sherlock scolded the newly hatched chicks because they had strayed too far from the hen: he had already told them many times that it was dangerous, and they could end up eaten by foxes, why did they never listen to him?

 

One afternoon at the end of June, while Sherlock was on the bank of the torrent, busy experimenting with new fishing techniques, and John was chopping wood for the winter, the human received a visit from Gregory.

He offered the usual tea to the gray faun, and took the opportunity to thank him for the support Greg had given him with Mycroft and the other Custodians.

"I've seen Sherlock doing more things in the last few months than in his whole life," Gregory observed, halfway between incredulous and amused.

"He calculated how much my stocks of fruit and vegetables will be lower comparing to the last year, and he is determined to get me putting aside as much meat and dried fish as possible."

"If you find yourself in trouble with food reserves, take this, but don’t let anyone know, I'm making an exception to the rules for you,” Gregory handed him a fruit as big as a pomegranate, with a lumpy, bright pink peel, that emanated a strong spicy scent. “It’s a fruit of Yggdrasil," he explained.

"But it’s barely summer now: in winter it will have gone bad."

"No,” the Custodian gave him a look of patient indulgence at his words. “Trust Yggdrasil, she is like a mother to all of us, and a mother knows how to take care of her children."

"Thank you."

John took the fruit from his hands as if it were something fragile and precious.

"I don’t do it just for you, but also for him: in spite of everything, I'm fond of that walking disgrace," Gregory snorted.

Those words brought back to John's mind a conversation he had had with Gregory a few months earlier, about how inferior the duration of human life was compared to that of Custodians.

"You have to promise me something, Gregory,” the human began, looking at him solemnly, “when I'm gone, look after him. Comfort and force him to take care of himself."

Gregory hesitated a moment and bit his lip.

"What's up?"

"It's not something that concerns me, and I don’t know if I'm doing the right thing, talking about it, but some time ago Mycroft told me something."

"What is it?"

"He is not sure that the length of his brother's life has remained the same, after meeting you."

John blanched and his breathing became heavy.

"God... is it because of the effort Sherlock did when he used magic at Magnussen's castle?"

"No, no, you're off track again... why do I always have to face certain topics?" Gregory muttered to himself.

"Oh, it's about..." John blushed and gestured with his hands.

"Yes: as you saw, our body changes when we mate."

"I know, you grow antlers, as is now happening to Sherlock, but what does this have to do with his life expectancy?"

"You see, there is a reason why we Custodians live so long: we are in symbiosis with this Forest. We protect it, but we need a lot of time to learn how to use magic and achieve the right level of wisdom that allows us to always act for the best, in accordance with the laws of nature. According to very ancient studies carried out by our ancestors, mating with weaker and less long-lived species, causes changes in us, much more serious than the antlers. This is why it never happened that a human and a Custodian became companions, even before our peoples became enemies, because it wasn’t beneficial to us, it wouldn’t have been wise and would have prevented us from doing our job and fulfilling our duties toward the Forest. But Sherlock has other priorities, apparently."

"Please Gregory, speaks clearly: what changes are you talking about?" John whispered, more and more tense.

"Well, according to Mycroft, your mating has brought about profound changes in Sherlock's biorhythms, and he has adapted to your life span."

John was so shocked by the revelation that he had to lean against the wall of the cabin, because his head was spinning… the life of his companion had been halved.

"My god, is Sherlock aware of this?"

"I’m sure that he is, ever since he made the decision to choose you as a companion. As I already told you, Sherlock is a Custodian, he knows everything about our people, even if it doesn’t seem."

"I…"

"It's not with me that you should talk about it. Now I leave, I know that Sherlock is always in a bad mood if he sees me around you."

That night at dinner, John was very taciturn and almost didn’t touch food: albeit unknowingly, he felt like he had deprived Sherlock of something important, years of his life that he could live, things he could do, adventures that he could have, all things that he had given up by becoming his companion. John also thought that, since Sherlock was with him, he had done nothing but damage him in some way, and that he didn’t deserve such a great gift as having the faun by his side.

The Custodian extended his hands on the table and closed them firmly around John's.

"I’m not interested in living many years, if they’re only a long succession of days of loneliness and pain without you."

"You heard us, then."

"You forget that I have a good hearing."

"Sherlock, I..."

"No!” Sherlock gripped his hands harder, “you'd end up saying something extremely stupid."

"But…"

"I knew it John, I knew from the beginning what would have meant to mate with you, I knew that my vital functions would be harmonized with yours, I made my decision in absolute awareness and, if it makes feel you better, you have to know that I never regretted it: I want to be with you, for all the time that will be granted to us, I don’t care about anything else."

"But all the things you could do..." John protested.

"Without you, everything would lose attractiveness, you know. I wouldn’t want anything, if not to rejoin you."

"It's just that sometimes it seems to me that you only make sacrifices on my account, and that three whole lives wouldn’t suffice to repay you."

"Here, see? I was right: you say very silly things. "

"And you are tied to a fool for life."

"The only fool I want."

Without saying anything else, John stood up, interlocked his fingers with Sherlock's, took him to bed and loved him tenderly all night long.

 

On a rainy evening, Sherlock was looking for candles in the trunk, to play chess with John, and found an object wrapped in cloth.

"What is this?” He sniffed the envelope and understood. “A book, a new book! When did you buy it?"

"Oh, with all that happened, I had completely forgotten about it: I bought it for you when I was in Fort Barts trying to find a cure for the illness. It's a book about travels around the world, but…” John shrugged and grimaced, “after what happened to you, I guess you no longer want to hear about what exists outside of the Forest."

"The world has done no harm to me, I don’t understand why I should carry resentment towards it," Sherlock replied with his usual, simple wisdom, loosening the knot of the fabric. "The persons who hurt me were only some men, who don’t represent you or the world."

"It is very noble of you to think so."

"It's rational, John: you're in the world too, and you represent it much better than Connor or Magnussen."

"Will you ever stop to flatter me?" John asked, bending down to kiss him on the lips.

"Not until I have breath."

John revived the fire in the fireplace, Sherlock crawled up to him and held out the book with hopeful eyes. "Do you want to read something to me?"

"I thought you liked to read by yourself," the man replied, but took the volume from Sherlock's hands anyway, and sat down on the floor, stretching his legs in front of him.

"When you read, it’s more beautiful, words are different, more true, and if you talk to me of distant places, I close my eyes and it’s like I’m there for real."

"All right."

John opened the book, while Sherlock rested his head on the man’s thighs and let his companion's voice carry him elsewhere, outside the border of the Forest, only with the thought this time, but in a much safer way.

 

Once again, the alpine summer passed in a flash, and one afternoon at the end of September, after spending the morning picking up walnuts, that were now drying in the yard, John went on a long walk, up to a slightly steep slope that was just in front of the majestic Mount Baker. 

He lay down on the grass that began to fade, crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, lulled by the rustle of the wind and the smell of the earth, while the sun warmed his face.

Sherlock joined him shortly after, lying down next to him on his stomach and rubbing his face on John’s hair, but careful not to bump him with his antlers, now clearly visible, that sported a wreath of woven flowers. 

There had already been a couple of incidents with the antlers, fortunately not serious, due to the impetuosity of the Custodian, who still didn’t know how to calculate the distances with the new appendages on his head.

John accepted a similar wreath of flowers that Sherlock placed on his head.

"Do you like flowers, John?"

"Yes, a lot."

"And what's your favourite one?"

"The dandelion" he replied without hesitation.

"Oh."

Sherlock frowned slightly, puzzled by John's choice of a flower so simple and common: he would have rather thought of a wild orchid or a tufted horned rampion, because in his eyes John was extraordinary.

"Why the dandelion?"

"Because it’s a flower full of hope: when it ripens and entrusts its seeds to the wind, it doesn’t know where they will end up. They could fall into a creek, between the rocks or on a tree, and in that case they will never grow, but despite not being sure that its seeds will grow a new plant, the dandelion never ceases to hope that a small amount falls on fertile ground and start the cycle of life again. And I want to live with the same hope of that flower," he added, after a brief pause.

"I understand,” said Sherlock. “It's a nice thought, I like it."

Even though now, thanks to Rodrigo's "compensating theft", John would no longer have any economic problems, and wouldn’t have to leave the valley to work in the village, many things could still go wrong: an attack by rebel wolves, bears or wild boars, an avalanche, a fire, a wound or a neglected disease, men whose greed was stronger than the fear that the Forest instilled.

Many were the unknowns that loomed over his frail life of helpless man before the fate and the power of Nature, but John had decided to hope that everything would be fine, as the tenacious yellow flower did.

Sherlock rested his head on his chest, John hugged him tenderly, and the two of them lay still on the fragrant grass, looking at the last dandelion flowers of the summer that scattered their seeds in the wind.

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I commissioned to [Johix](http://johix.tumblr.com/) a [drawing](https://johnlockismyreligion.tumblr.com/post/179354223078/please-stop-scrolling-down-and-look-at-the?fbclid=IwAR1WmZX6Z3KcDnRjMOvRKV78BYd9kur-LAy0_1hgAVQSwn_SQXhBymUzj3c) for this last chapter. Isn't it perfect?
> 
> What to say? Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for all your comments and the support you have given to this story.  
> Honestly, given the particular setting and the fact that Fawnlock was famous some years ago but not so much now (at least so it seems to me, like if I was too late for the party), I didn’t expect you liked it so much, but I'm happy to have been proved wrong ^_^
> 
> In case someone was wondering how the place that has been the background to this story is, here are some ideas (the photos are mine, taken from my DeviantArt page. I took all of them in Trentino, a northern Italian region):  
> \- the road that goes to Fort Barts, that can be glimpsed at the foot of the mountain (actually is Lomaso upland): [X](http://orig14.deviantart.net/0ae1/f/2009/029/1/5/fiave___3_by_hotaru_tomoe78.jpg)  
> \- the path leading into the deep of the Forest: [X](http://pre09.deviantart.net/8a5f/th/pre/i/2014/244/5/4/mystic_wood_2_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d7xiom3.jpg)  
> \- the waterfall that you find before arriving in the clearing (of course imagine it without the bridge at the top): [X](http://orig06.deviantart.net/0071/f/2010/246/0/3/cascata_del_pedruc_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d2xx9x9.jpg)  
> \- the cabin of John and Sherlock in the clearing: [X](http://img12.deviantart.net/a2f9/i/2012/272/a/1/plaza_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d5g9rk9.jpg)  
> \- the torrent that runs along the edge of the clearing: [X](http://orig10.deviantart.net/95b7/f/2013/256/c/a/val_nambrone_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d6m5icc.jpg)  
> \- the cold alpine winter: [X](http://orig02.deviantart.net/117e/f/2011/010/5/d/lost_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d36uqwd.jpg)  
> [X](http://pre02.deviantart.net/3118/th/pre/i/2013/013/1/6/frozen_wonderland_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d5rdlom.jpg)  
> \- Mount Baker (actually it’s the Adamello glacier): [X](http://orig10.deviantart.net/5bae/f/2010/022/e/2/adamello_2_by_hotaru_tomoe78.jpg)  
> \- the valley of the Custodians that hides Yggdrasil’s garden: [X](http://orig03.deviantart.net/380d/f/2009/021/7/c/cascata_del_matarot_by_hotaru_tomoe78.jpg)  
> \- the lawn where John and Sherlock lie on in the last scene of the fic: [X](http://orig05.deviantart.net/cd9f/f/2010/245/9/1/prato_d__estate_2_by_hotaru_tomoe78-d2xudsn.jpg)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover] the last dandelion of summer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16019735) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)




End file.
